Influx

While the Wii launch on November 17th probably was too late for most of the trade magazines best of lists, the effort in Influx’s books goes down as the best of the year.

Taking a console with comparatively inferior technology, going against competitors with money to burn and managing to come out on top, deserves significant praise.

However, it wasn’t just the win, it was also the way it was done.

Gaming, despite what all the research from gaming publications tell us, is still frowned upon by the masses as an anti-social and introverted activity, played by young males in their teens and early twenties and older males who should know better.

Wii took the cultural barriers head on and burst through them by bringing much needed physical activity to gaming. By making gaming physical and easy, it also added sociability and in so doing, broke the cultural conventions of gaming.

According to the LA Times (registration required) Nintendo’s marketing efforts stretched well beyond television advertising and involved the recruitment of “Alpha Moms” to the cause. As part of the seeding plan, one Alpha Mom invited 35 of her friends to play with the Wii in a suite at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles.

“The company hired a consultant to identify three sets of “ambassadors” in each city: a core gamer/loyalist who would sing the praises of the system to other gamers; a large multi-generational family, where everyone from the kids to the grandparents could take turns with the Wii remote; and an alpha mom, who would presumably spread the word at schoolyards, soccer fields and her neighborhood.”

LA Times

These individuals worked as product seeders having been given the game in advance, they used their influence to spread the word and laid the foundation for the marketing efforts to follow.

According to U.S. sales data from NPD Nintendo sold 476,000 units in November, twice the volume of PlayStation 3, which was in short supply, and close to that of the Xbox 360, which sold 511,000.

This case shows the importance of getting products out in the marketplace to gain trial and word of mouth. This is marketing from the year dot, but combine this with the networked power of the Internet and you have something incredibly powerful.

So Nintendo wins for us on all counts..

Product: Innovative-didn’t require state of the art graphics- instead combined motion sensors with simple graphics and fun gameplay to bring physical activity to video games.

Price:At $250 the lowest priced next-gen console that included a free game Wii Sports- the “killer application”- a game that was so fun and easy, everyone wanted to play and be introduced to the Wii

Place:Making sure the unit was available in all the expected locations.

Promotion:Grassroots marketing lit the fuse for the fire that other activities built upon.

Nintendo’s only problem, they didn’t produce enough units, but perhaps scarcity was also a calculated part of its marketing plan.