Advertising Strategies

Finding the right advertising strategy is obviously an important part of running any successful business. Beyond logos, companies may have to create billboard designs, a clever magazine ad or a compelling commercial, among other options. In this entry I'd like to focus on the importance of finding the right spokesperson for one's product by using a piece of digital media from another country.

The Japanese company Nintendo is known world-wide as one of the three main superpowers in the video game world. So for them, marketing is no longer a huge issue because they already have a huge fanbase wanting to buy their products. Still, every company wants to expand and Nintendo is no different. I was quite impressed with Nintendo's new choice in spokesperson for their products in Japan.

Arashi, pictured here, is an insanely popular boy band in Japan, known for their huge body of extremely loyal fangirls. Most video game companies know that their main market is largely male and they naturally create advertising campaigns geared toward them. However, Nintendo decided to go a different route. Confident that males would buy their products regardless, they decided to target a completely different audience: pre-teen to teenage girls. It started out with two Arashi members playing a new Mario game. The ads quickly became a huge success as fangirls jumped at the chance to support their idols and play the same games that they play. Nintendo began using this boy band to advertise all of their major new products and watched the raise in sales.

Eventually, Nintendo got to the point where they could release ads like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJSRdrJg4WU Basically, these are a series of 15 second ads, showing each member's reaction to playing the 3DS. Again, Nintendo knew what they needed and what they didn't need. Why bother spending money and time making a complicated commercial? The hype the 3DS had created already ensured that the video game community was aware of the 3DS and didn't need a commercial telling them to buy it. Arashi fangirls may not know about the 3DS, but all they really need is to see the members of the band in a commercial using it and they are sold. No need to get fancy, Arashi's presence does all the work for Nintendo. It's a case of work smart not hard and Nintendo has definitely learned how to work smart in Japan.