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Forums - Nintendo - Why Does Nintendo's US Advertising Suck?

PullusPardus on 10 July 2013

Because Americans love their wubwubwub no scope tactical yoshi mount 



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Albicant on 10 July 2013
Soundwave said:
Albicant said:
Is the Japan ad really that great? Assuming the people who like Pikmin are already planning to buy it, Nintendo should be targeting people who are unfamiliar with it. The ad only has a few seconds of gameplay footage, and wouldn't really tell me what the game is like if I didn't already know.

I think that's what NoA are going for with their ads. They don't need to make a Mario ad that targets the core. We already know about Mario! They want kids who might not know to go 'hey, mom, I want this!'. I'm not saying NoA's ad is great; it's not, but I think that's who they're targeting with this kind of ad. We might think it's crappy, but we're not being targeted.

Really though, Nintendo need to think of a way to make the gamepad appeal to people the same way they did with the wiimote, which that ad just doesn't do. Do that, and then they'll be in business


There is no commercial that's going to make the Wii U controller as appealling as the Wiimote was for 2006. Just not gonna happen.

All their commercials now are doing is making the machine look like a novelty product for the 8-year-old kid in the family that mom and dad can help out with.

Marketing is about the image you create for the product, not neccessarily being a banner point for every feature of your product. Apple doesn't explain everything the iPhone does in their commercials, that's not good marketing. The Japanese ad is funny, clean, and elegant and protrays how cute the Pikmin are while meshing it with an attractive looking Japanese model, which creates the impression that this is not just a product for kids but for adults too. Do the exact same ad for the West, but substitue in a Western Victoria Secret model or movie actress, and it would be very successful at getting people curious about the game.

But we'll probably get the stupid "little brother playing Pikmin while his parents watch" thing again.

Apple doesn't need to demonstrate the iPhone because everyone on the planet knows what one is. They have the ability to put on stylish, minimalistic ads. Nintendo obviously doesn't really have that luxury with the Wii U. I agree that they should try to make ads more elegant, but they also need to showcase the actual product, because not many people outside of forum-goers like us have any idea what the thing even is. Slapping a model on the tv and a few seconds of difficult to interpret gameplay is going to make me curious, but not about the game!

I see what you're saying about making it seem like a kids product, but ultimately that demographic is a big part of Nintendo's userbase, and they need to go after it. The NoA ad was poorly executed, obviously, but it's pointed at an audience that is likely to result in a few sales.

Hopefully they'll try something a bit more ambitious with their Pikmin ads.



Cold-Flipper on 10 July 2013

Why do people on here think the advertising is bad?

Nintendo advertises the 3DS games pretty decently with some commercials and online ads. I think Nintendo was right not to advertise the Wii U yet. What is there to advertise? A high-quality exclusive hasn't been released in about 7 months or so. They should start advertising again starting with the launch of Pikmin 3.

Plus, commercials don't even have a huge effect on sales nowadays. It's all about Internet advertising and hype. Word of mouth is the strongest form by far so just make an awesome game so that it gets high praise to attract attention.

I think their advertising methods have been fine.



NoirSon on 10 July 2013
Albicant said:
Soundwave said:
Albicant said:
Is the Japan ad really that great? Assuming the people who like Pikmin are already planning to buy it, Nintendo should be targeting people who are unfamiliar with it. The ad only has a few seconds of gameplay footage, and wouldn't really tell me what the game is like if I didn't already know.

I think that's what NoA are going for with their ads. They don't need to make a Mario ad that targets the core. We already know about Mario! They want kids who might not know to go 'hey, mom, I want this!'. I'm not saying NoA's ad is great; it's not, but I think that's who they're targeting with this kind of ad. We might think it's crappy, but we're not being targeted.

Really though, Nintendo need to think of a way to make the gamepad appeal to people the same way they did with the wiimote, which that ad just doesn't do. Do that, and then they'll be in business


There is no commercial that's going to make the Wii U controller as appealling as the Wiimote was for 2006. Just not gonna happen.

All their commercials now are doing is making the machine look like a novelty product for the 8-year-old kid in the family that mom and dad can help out with.

Marketing is about the image you create for the product, not neccessarily being a banner point for every feature of your product. Apple doesn't explain everything the iPhone does in their commercials, that's not good marketing. The Japanese ad is funny, clean, and elegant and protrays how cute the Pikmin are while meshing it with an attractive looking Japanese model, which creates the impression that this is not just a product for kids but for adults too. Do the exact same ad for the West, but substitue in a Western Victoria Secret model or movie actress, and it would be very successful at getting people curious about the game.

But we'll probably get the stupid "little brother playing Pikmin while his parents watch" thing again.

Apple doesn't need to demonstrate the iPhone because everyone on the planet knows what one is. They have the ability to put on stylish, minimalistic ads. Nintendo obviously doesn't really have that luxury with the Wii U. I agree that they should try to make ads more elegant, but they also need to showcase the actual product, because not many people outside of forum-goers like us have any idea what the thing even is. Slapping a model on the tv and a few seconds of difficult to interpret gameplay is going to make me curious, but not about the game!

I see what you're saying about making it seem like a kids product, but ultimately that demographic is a big part of Nintendo's userbase, and they need to go after it. The NoA ad was poorly executed, obviously, but it's pointed at an audience that is likely to result in a few sales.

Hopefully they'll try something a bit more ambitious with their Pikmin ads.

The problem lies in the fact that they are soley targeting the young/family market.

Back in the first weeks of the Wii U's launch would it have cost them anything to run a commercial that had clips from several Wii U games like Ninja Gaiden 3: RE, Batman, ACreed 3, Mass Effect or ZombiU? Instead we get a bunch of commercials with neon lights and families playing games that could have been on the Wii for the most part.

There are plenty of ways for them to have tried to grab a audience but instead they went for half baked techniques that worked 5-6 years ago and when those failed, they pretty much stopped trying and focused on the 3DS which had the benefit of a rich schedule of games while the Wii U is left a few Nintendo Directs to tide over its fans that became early adopters.

I love Nintendo as a whole but they have had made crappy decisions with regards to some of their US advertisement and releases to the point I and many other die hards have lost a lot of faith.

Edit: Sadly I fear that Wonderful 101 is probably going to be another title that suffers because they can't figure out how to get the non Nintendo fan's attention and it will suffer due to being released just prior to Pikmin 3.