Avoiding the Performance Trap

Nintendo’s ability to expand the market for video games by reaching out to non-gamers with the Wii is well documented. However, even before the Wii was launched, Nintendo sought to break the mold of what it meant to be a gamer. In the early 1980s the company launched its Famicom (NES) console in Japan with features that would allow it to do more than just play games. For example, a modem enabled it to be used for accessing news, weather, and sports, or it could be used for online banking and stock trading. In the early 1990s, Nintendo marketed the Game Boy to adult professionals with games like Tetris.

Nintendo DS Lite bundle featuring "brand ambassador" Olivia Newton-John: "A sharp mind is as important as a healthy body."

Similarly, with the DS, Nintendo has sought to expand the market with games like Brain Age, Brain Training, and Nintendogs. In the following commercial spot, Nintendo “brand ambassador” Olivia Newton-John discusses how Brain Training helps keep her mind sharp.

One common feature in Nintendo commercials for both the Wii and DS is the lack of gameplay footage. In the above video, for example, the game is shown for a total of three seconds. The remainder of the commercial focuses on the actors. The idea is to get potential customers to identify with the player, not the game.

This approach is very similar to the one that Unilever took with its Dove brand beauty soap (see “Hips Feel Good” – Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty). In 2004, Unilever re-launched Dove by taking the focus away from the soap’s technical merits (such as real cream moisturizers). The Campaign for Real Beauty instead appealed to human emotion, values, and morals in a form of “societal marketing” that focused more on the consumer and consumer needs. Commercials that once centered on the soap, instead focused on “real” women.

Prior to 2004, Dove commercials focused on the soap

True Colors – Dove’s soap-free 2006 Super Bowl commercial demonstrated the power of societal marketing

Societal marketing has become an increasingly important and profitable marketing strategy for companies. Often it focuses on environmental issues, such as reducing greenhouse gases (e.g., hybrid cars, solar power, recycling), but it can also focus on promoting healthy behavior (e.g., diet and exercise), while discouraging unhealthy behavior (e.g., drug abuse and smoking).
Traditionally, and often unjustly, video games have been associated with unhealthy outcomes like violence and obesity. In much the same way as Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty helped consumers rethink the definition of beauty, games like Brain Age and Wii Fit are getting people to reevaluate the role of video games in society.

Still, Nintendo’s market expansion efforts have not always worked according to plan. In North America, for example, it took much longer than in Europe and Japan to convince consumers that the DS was more than an expensive child’s toy. Whereas European sales were driven by adult-oriented games like Brain Age, North America continued to be dominated by children’s games like Pokemon.

Today, other companies are following Nintendo’s lead by making games and gaming console’s that fill the needs of adult non-gamers. The most successful of these will have differentiating features that are attuned to shifting societal values and that appeal to fundamental emotional needs.