2006-2010 was them at their best as far as marketing goes, as reflected in their sales. It's amazing that it took them so little time to utterly lose the plot.

That's certainly true, they managed to bring in otherwise disinterested demographics to sell the Wii and DS to. I suppose I was referring to the funny and/or clever advertising that targeted "gamers" back in the day.

At this point they're not doing a good job with either.

"Now you're playing with power: super power!"

Ah, them were the days...

Well, part of the issue here is... the way we consume media is changing. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Crunchyroll all exist on a subscrion based platform which allows them to cut commercials out of the picture. When we DO consume media via traditional TV media, we record it and fast forward at 16x speed through the commercials and don't view them anyway. Then there's Youtube, Twitch, and other such services that more and more people are gravitating towards due to the varity of content and unfilted/unbiased(mostly) opinions. 

Going forward, I personally would love to see a multi-tiered approach to Nintendos advertising which includes some traditional advertising, but mostly focusing on a less traditional approach via Youtube type services. Remember when Destiny was close to launch? You couldn't watch a single video on Youtube or Twitch stream without being forced to see a Destiny add at least twice. Now while Destiny turned out to be mediocre at best(my opinion, its mmo halo),  that didn't matter one bit due to how many copies it sold super fast due to all the hype.

Regardless how good or bad of a game it is or isn'tt, Mario Maker will sell simply because it's got Mario in the title.

I loved "Get N or Get Out" myself and I think that suits them right now as a matter of fact.  They're doing their own thing and focusing on production of uinque products so they might as well flaunt it.  Being different can be off putting if spun one way or badass if spun the other way. 

Also, it's hard to imagine that Nintendo is the same Nintendo from NOW.  I mean, one minute they do something brilliant, the next they do something asinine.  The directs and the Digital Event are, imo, excellent in concept and have an excellent message of consumer focused business.  Little to no double talk and pissing contests with others, just "here's you some content."  But the Wii U launch campaign and 2013 holiday campaign?  I mean my word. 

IMO E3 2014 marked a turning point and Nintendo's advertising is trending up.  And I honestly think that is the major reason for the maintained momentum coming out of December for Wii U; it's doing much better on Amazon.  Why?  Cause ever since E3 2014 NIntendo has done *enough* right to have people pay attention.  Now they just need an organized campaign to really push it and capitalize on the massive backdraft that much of the industry is feeling (Watch Dogs, Destiny, Assassin's Creed Unity, and Master Chief Collection have caused a *lot* of drama).  But I don't know if they'll be willing to spend the cash.

I live in Sweden and there are barley any game related commercials here except for consoles and WoW. I do not know much about commercials in USA or UK.
But it seems to me that Nintendo are not reaching to your age group rather they advertise in their "traditional" places: places where kids and families are.
Miyamoto went to youtube channels like ijustinegaming https://www.youtube.com/user/ijustinegaming and Smosh Games https://www.youtube.com/user/SmoshGames before christmas to talk about new and upcoming games.
They get Mario Kart toys to McDonald's Happy Meals.
Nintendo top some list over holday commercials http://marketingland.com/nintendo-ebates-com-score-top-holiday-ads-112366 with an ad targeted at families.
"Without" advertising Nintendo manages to sell millions of amiibo toys http://wiiudaily.com/2015/01/nintendos-new-big-hit-amiibo-sales-are-twice-of-super-smash-bros/.

They are also on APEX: https://mobile.twitter.com/apex_series/status/553614352641970176

...and on twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/nintendo

True that!!!

From what I understand "dudebros" are easily hyped. Maybe more so than kids.

I don't really think they hold much potential to begin with. You can push sales for any game with marketing but I don't think it will make much difference in this case.

What they should do is crank up the marketing on XCX. That's a giant game that has multiples of the combined work hours of Splatoon and Mario Maker in it. It deserves sales according to that.