For my external marketing blog, I stumbled upon this very interesting blog post for Nintendo’s new gaming system, the Wii U. Now, in my opinion the system takes away the fun of gaming with friends and encourages kids to not be social as they can ignore other people in the room and still play their games. But this is not the most shocking part. This campaign should raise a few eyebrows!!

They are comparing it to their own product, and pretty much saying our other product is bad so don’t buy it!! How does that make any sense!! The Wii is already known to be a bit of an inferior system to the PS3 and XBOX 360, so it should be comparing the new features of the Wii U to these systems and showing how these new features make their system more appealing for younger children who want to play video games (as that is the segment that Nintendo serves). This contradicts basic marketing strategy; you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors, not yourself!! This will only hurt sales as it pretty much trashes their own system, and those who don’t like the idea will behind the Wii U, but are told by Nintendo that the Wii is not as good as the Wii U the customer does not want, will just take their business to either Sony or Microsoft for another game system, and Nintendo will loose sales. I am in full agreement with the blog post I read, as it is just absurd that this is a marketing campaign that a company would use for their own product as it hurts themselves in hopes of attracting customers to their product. But the bigger question is, anyone interested in the Wii U will not be interested in the Wii as they will want the newer system, so will the comparison provide any value to them if the Wii was never an option for them.

The last two movies I have seen in theaters have had some odd advertising. I’m used to the generic car  and cell phone commercials as I am a frequent visitor to the movie theaters, and 3D movie trailers for new movies coming out in 3D. But these times, I experienced 3D commercials for Cover Girl makeup and the Black Berry Z10! I was extremely confused by these two marketing campaigns as to me the 3D part seemed absolutely absurd and not needed!

3D is cutting edge technology, as proven with movies, but it needs to be paired with the right movie and done properly. And its taken Hollywood a few years, but they are finally learning how to use it. But here we go all over again with companies marketing their products. I don’t see the reason for having the commercials in 3D as it doesn’t make the product seem more life like (the makeup maybe to show how real it looks, like its in 3D! You can see the colour on the eye lashes! I don’t, I’m a guy!) This seems so irrelevant as products are we something we can touch, feel and interact with, so 3D seems to have no place in the marketing campaign. I understand the purpose for movie trailers in 3D, as the final movie is in 3D so it gives you a short idea of what the movie is about and how the 3D aspect of the movie feels. But its pricey to convert to 3D, so why are companies using the technology on basic marketing campaigns. It seems like a waste of money as the trailers are when so many people run to the washroom or to the concession stand to get food before the movie begins, which begs the question: if they are spending all the money on 3D technology for their commercials, who is their campaign reaching if half the theater isn’t watching it!