Nintendo

When we think of brands, we think of the Nike Swoosh and the Golden Arches of McDonalds. But I
tell you now, these are logos not brands. Or sometimes, a jingle rings in our ears like “Taste of a
news generation” or “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands”. But same goes…these are not a
brand, these are slogans. So what is a brand? A brand is not an image or good copy… a brand is a
promise. The corporate slogan is a way to communicate their promise, and their logo is the picture
worth a thousand words. You might be sitting back and thinking a bit about this, but don’t you fret. My
aim here is to spend time studying popular brands and examine their brand and explain how they use
their logo and slogan and other marketing tricks to deliver on their promise.

Nintendo is one of the oldest video gaming companies in the market, and surprisingly enough, their
logo has stayed relatively unaltered throughout their entire existence in the consumer electronic
market space. Not to say they’ve had their ups and downs over the years, in fact, they almost
completely disappeared into the video game graveyard until they miraculously took a 90 degree turn
in their corporate strategy to save their company. During these dips and truns throughout their
history, Nintendo had to constantly focus and then re-focus their brand promise to their customers as
their business changed.

Logo

Entertainment brands are unique in that their products are marketed more heavily then than the
manufacturer. But once that product’s shelf-life is over (or in this case playability), than the product
brand is extinguished. A movie studio like MGM can maintain their lion logo for almost a century
because, frankly, we care more about the movie then the distributor. So even thought Nintendo has
many logos for their many products, the Nintendo has no need to change it’s logo and as a result, its
brand benefits from it’s longevity. Nintendo’s logo was adapted in the 1970s when they purchased
the rights to the Magnavox Odyssey and dove head first into the digital gaming market. Simply, the
logo racetrack oval and typeface was easy to recreate in an 8-bit pixel world, and it was was futuristic
and modern. The red logo could be argued to represent life and fun, but when you only have 8 colors
to choose from, red is probably as good as it gets.
 “Now You’re

Playing with Power”

Nintendo was just another player in the coin-op arcade market earning their money one quarter at a
time (lined up on the ledge of the screen). Each of the major players had their marquee game:
Nintendo had Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong, Sega had Zaxxon and Cliffhanger, Atari had
Asteroids, and Missile Command. One thing Atari had that nobody else had was the Atari 2600,
which gave them the ability to let their teenage customers go home, back to their living rooms, and
keep blasting asteroids and thwarting alien attacks. Everyone wanted in and soon the market
flooded with the likes of the ColecoVision, and Intellivision. In 1983, it got so bad that the market
saturated to the point of mass bankruptcies to just about everyone. Some call it patience and
foresight, others call it sluggish market reaction, but Nintendo never released their console and
survived the video game crash. It’s not that people didn’t want to play video games anymore. It’s
that the games sucked! Visually the home versions were bad, block pixel games with pathetic user
experiences. They paled in comparison with the colorful, entertaining, and artistic coin-op versions
that they were trying to emulate. Gamers did the quick math… “If I save all my quarters and buy this
console, I could play a crappy version of PacMan… um… I’d rather pay the 25 cents”. So off they
went, on their 10-speed…with the baseball card flapping in their spokes…to the laundromat…to try to
beat MMK’s high score.

Nintendo had their console ready for the market two years in

1985. The NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) was a console game like no other. It offered
games like Super Mario Bros, Excitabike, and Donkey Kong Jr. and they were perfect renditions of
their arcade versions. But it’s like being the best dressed for the prom, but coming a day late. The
home console market was a wasteland, and the gamers had to be drawn back to the console market
again. So Nintendo adapted their famous slogan Now You’re Playing with Power. They recognized
that the gamers will return if they promised that the SNES would be so powerful that you never have
to go to an arcade ever again. Super Mario Bros was still at it’s lineups at the arcade so their
marketing blitz used their little Italian friend as a mascot to re-enforce the promise that this gaming
system would not disappoint (these were the seeds of Mario himself as a brand). This NES
commercial was aired during the late 1980s and not only did it show cutting edge gaming technology
but it strategically added screen shots of Super Mario Bros, and Kung Fu Master, and depending on
how old you are, made it clear to the arcade patrons that in fact the NES is powerful!

Nintendo rode the wave of success and because a mainstay in living rooms and dorm rooms for a
better part of a decade. They applied their strict standard of quality gaming to subsiquent gaming
systems like the Super NES ( Now you’re playing with power. Super power.) and the Game Boy (Now
you’re playing with portable power.).

“Get N, Or Get

Out!”

Gamers stopped going to arcades because, they can sit on

their butt, and play hours and hours of Zelda, Final Fantasy and evolution of the Mario franchise into
Super Mario World. (insert “No-Friendo joke here). Nintendo instituted strict rules for title releases to
ensure programmers created games that were worth of the Nintendo Seal of Approval. Games were
so engaging, and elaborate that any other competitor would never be able to get a foothold in this
lucrative industry. But one of the most difficult part of console marketing is when it’s time for the
technology to changes and in 1992 Nintendo knew they have to once again convince their faithful
customers, to drop their old console in the trash, and buck up for the next big thing. But during this
transition, a new gunslinger rode into town. Sony decided to use their mountains of money to start
developing a 32-bit console that was scheduled to release in 1995 (SNES was 16-bit). But Nintendo
wasn’t worried – their 64-bit Nintendo 64 was to release shortly after, and all would be right in Mario’s
world. Nintendo stayed true to their brand that cutting edge technology and an established stable of
reliable game brands would prove that they still had the power.

Yes, Sony has deep pockets and they blitzed the Japanese and North American markets. And yes,
Sony knew consumer electronics better than anyone. And yes, they had this new Compact Disc
technology which very modern (indeed). And yes, they had the sweet, sweet, thumb controllers. Oh
yes, these all played a hand in the mass popularity of the Sony PlayStation, but there was a bigger
demise which caused Nintendo to go into a tailspin for over a decade.

In 1995, on the eve of Sony‘s launch of the PlayStation, Nintendo had complete domination the home
console market. Kids no longer went to the arcade after school. Instead, they would race home on
their skateboards and reload their saved game of Zelda on their SNES. And if they couldn’t make it
home, they would reach into their back pocket, pull out their GameBoy and play a couple rounds of
Tetris. The Nintendo brand did not stop at hardware. Mario, Luigi, Link, Donkey Kong and the rest of
the Nintendo characters because marketing icons themselves and Nintendo branched into TV
cartoons, and merchandising. Oh life was good. So good in fact that were not aware of a change in
the gaming landscape.

The previous paradigm of identical clones of arcade games was no longer

relevant, because arcade games were becoming obsolete. And the hard-line policies previously used
to ensure game quality and child-friendliness became a growth inhibitor because game programmers
we limited in the number of titles they could release. Sony went after Nintendo by lifting restrictions
on game programmers and gave their source code to anyone that had two hands and a keyboard.
You made the same title as someone else? No problem we’ll call it something else. Too much blood
and gore? Hmm, we don’t care. Oh your game is boring and totally no fun? Whatever… that’s your
problem. So on that dreaded day for Nintendo, Sony dropped their new 32-bit gaming console
“Playstation” in stres worldwide accompanied with a massive catalog of titles. Most of those titles
were mediocre or crap, but there were enough gems like Ridge Racer and Warhawk. The
Playstation people believed, “Nintendo may have their Mario and Zelda, but we have everything
else”. And soon, PlayStation took a monster bite out of Nintendo’s marketshare.

Nintendo adopted the slogan “Who Needs a New System?” in an attempt

to stall PS1 sales until their N64 was released. Then the brand message was quickly flipped to
“Change the System” when they released the N64 the next fall in 1996. Once again, Nintendo was
late to the dance, but this time it would cost them. Let’s give credit where credit is due, the N64 flew
off the shelves like hotcakes. Nintendo was a comfortable fit, and Super Mario 64‘s stunning 3D
game play wooed the die-hard “Nintendroids”. But those same Nintendo users were also Playstation
owners too and as time passed, game creators like EA and Konami were profiting by making titles for
both systems. And even though, the Nintendo games were mostly great titles, the restriction-free
Sony was releasing 5 times more titles and many of them were just as good. Not to mention those
kids that fell in love with the Mario 10 years ago had grown up into teenagers, and PlayStation had no
problems allowing blood, and violence into their gaming genres. It became obvious that Sony was
dominating the marketplace and it was taking it’s toll on Nintendo. The more passive “Change the
System” was soon replaced with a more aggressive marketing campaign, “Get N, or Get Out!”. But it
was much too late, gamers were turning on their PS and letting their N64 collect dust.

Touching is

Good!

Nintendo was on the road to the way of the DoDo bird; the great Sony had shot an arrow into
Nintendo’s Achilles Heel, and the wound seemed fatal. The only really unique product they had left
was their handheld market, but clearly this could not keep Nintendo’s life line going.

Did I just say clearly?

In 1996, the same year the N64 launched, a new title was released for

the Gameboy featuring a little yellow creature named Pikachu. Unknown at the time, this battle game
called Pokemon because the beating pulse of Nintendo during the console battle with Sony.
Between 1996 and 2005, Nintendo diverted more and more of their resources toward the hand-held
gaming market; a market they still dominated. The original 1994 GameBoy slogan of “Play It Loud”
was replaced with the “Get Into It!” with the GameBoy Color and again, in 2001, replaced with “Life.
Advanced” for the GBA (Game Boy Advanced). Like a dog and it’s bone, Nintendo could ill-afford to
have Sony’s new secret weapon (PSP) to come and repeat history, so they decided to act instead of
react. So one year before that PSP hit the shelves, in 2004, Nintendo gave the world the Nintendo
DS. Their marketing campaign was centered around the word “Touch” to highlight the new
stylus/touchpad technology, on the dual screens. (get it?… Dual Screen?… DS?…) In previous
marketing strategies, Nintendo always used comparisons to show they were better then their
competitors, but for the first time, Nintendo just needed to focus on their customer and simply tell
them that the DS is a “good thing”. The “First to Market” approach paid off, and the DS (and soon to
be released DS Lite), along with some innovative games, would not relinquish their share of the
handheld market.
But as the old saying goes, “If a business isn’t growing, then the business is dying”. And Nintendo
was not growing at all. They had survived another day, but this wasn’t going to be good enough. So
they took their brand, twisted it sideways, and in 2005, Nintendo took a bold step forward.

So we have just looked at Nintendo‘s rise to power in the 1980′s by focusing their brand on promising
powerful technology and gaming excellence. We also looked at Nintendo throughtout the 1990′s as
the market slipped past them. Gaming console began to proliforate the market and quantity began to
prevail over quality, and first-to-market became more important than innovation. Nintendo was able to
stick their ‘finger-in-the-dam’ hold back the invasion of consumer electronic giants, but that wasn’t
going to last forever. So grab some poptarts and peanut butter and sit back as we look at Nintendo’s
gamble into the new millennium.

So let me paint a little picture of the landscape of 2005. Sony ruled the schoolyard of video gaming
for the rest of the millennium when which the Third Age of Video Gaming was about to begin. This
time the war was between the new and improved Sony Playstation 2 versus the up and coming
challenger, Microsoft‘s Xbox. It scares me to mention that Nintendo rolled out the GameCube
because that little purple box was barely even an undercard to the big fight. Not to mention that Sony
was also eye-balling the handheld market by releasing it’s multimedia-enabled device, the Playstation
Portable (PSP) in hopes to finally wipe Nintendo off the planet (insert GAME OVER joke here).

The war raged on between Microsoft and Sony. The PS2 and Xbox went blow for blow for a couple
years with PS2 winning most of the battles. Xbox had in fact never read history, and their struggles
mirrored Nintendo’s demise in the 1996. Which brings us to 2005… the calm before the storm. One
year before the scheduled release of the Playstation 3, Microsoft dropped a bomb on the gaming
community by unveiling their new Xbox 360 at E3 2006. A war was brewing…

Wii Move You

Pretty much grim right? How can Nintendo

possibly get back to fighting with the big boys? This was the question that was left in the hands of the
brain-trust of Nintendo – either come up with something new, or find a new job. So, locked in a room
with a white board and a box of Pocky, they went to work on righting the ship. If you happen to be a
fly on the wall in that room that whiteboard they were brainstorming on would look something like the
diagram on the right. For all you gamers out there, this graph simply shows that the Xbox 360 and
PS3 are pretty much nose to know in almost every category except the two items, motion control and
public appeal. For all you non-gamers/business strategists, this chart should be easily recognized as
a Blue Ocean Strategy.

Blue Ocean is a new age business strategy which focuses on ignoring the competition completely,
and creating new customers and new markets and just servicing their new customers – “If you build
it, they will come” sort-of-dealio. Essentially, Microsoft and Sony were fighting in the competitive
“Red Ocean”, and Nintendo wanted no part of that bloodbath, so instead they would rather sail off in
to the “Blue Ocean” with a new product where there’s less competition.

Now if you noticed at this point, Nintendo’s original brand promise of power and technology, had
waned and wavered to “Please buy me – I still have Mario”. Pressured under the strains of
competition, the Nintendo brand had strayed far off course and now was a time to return to their roots
– but instead of putting the power and technology back into the hands of gamers, they were aiming to
put it in the hands of the non-gamer. The newly merged technology departments of Nintendo went to
work on a new console that will appeal to mom and pop, child and teen, you and me.

I remember going to E3 in 2006 armed with my

backpack for swag and my 2megapixel camera hoping to get some pictures of new technology (I’m a
liar, the camera was for the booth girls). Walking in to the LA Convention Center all the buzz was
about the Xbox 360, but walking out, all the buzz was the Nintendo Wii (actually it was unnamed at
that point). Strangely, the public were never allowed to even see it let along play it. Those that were
able to try it, loved it. Those that didn’t see it, doubted it. But slowly yet surely, screenshots and
video clips were leaked to the media showing images of this crazy, motion-controlled, nun-chuck,
gamepad, stringy-thingy controller held by people in goofy poses, sweating and smiling from ear-to-
ear. Clearly Nintendo had created something very special. Product testing has proved this new
console was madly fun, and incredibly addicting. Market test also showed that the addiction and fun
transcended the gamer community and had global appeal.

Doubts turned to curiosity. Curiosity turned to anticipation. And just before Chirstmas of 2006,
anticipation turned into cash flow. Contrary to all the game release strategies of the past, the Wii
released with barely a handful of game titles, and was under-powered (no HD, no DVD, no hard
drive, no online marketplace). But that didn’t matter. I was just about to say the Nintendo Wii hit the
shelves, but they barely made it off the receiving dock before they sold out across the globe.
Combined with a fun marketing blitz, interactive gameplay kiosks, and a super cheap price point, the
Nintendo Wii was an instant hit. Children were play with their parents, parents were playing with their
grand-parents. It was a beautiful thing!

Nintendo had done the impossible, they had become a

force again. Nintendo had embraced their old brand strategy combined with a new Blue Ocean
Strategy and re-wrote the definition of “gamer”. Nintendo made some major brand adjustments in
2007 to market to their new found customers. Gamers are typically loud, bright, and hi-octane, and
the Nintendo was no longer wanted to be associated with these clowns. Nintendo customers were
more generic and diverse, and their brand had to represent that. The previous brand guides of hi-fi
art was turfed for a simple grey font with a clean, white background. The official color of the Nintendo
logo was also changed from bright red to a muted grey. A new slogan was adapted with the simple
brand promise, “Wii Move You”. All of these brand changes.. simple slogan, clean design, dull colors
was to prove to the world that the Will was for everybody. Through 2007 and 2008 the Wii constantly
remained on backorder in all store, and it’s popularity grew. In 2008, the WiiFit was introduced which
further cemented Nintendo’s brand promise of fun and mobility for everyone.

By no means, does this conclude the rise and fall of Nintendo. Last year, Activation and Red Octane
has inavertedly allowed Xbox 360 and Playstation to enter into Nintendo’s blue waters. And just last
month, Tony Hawk released the first motion-controlled skateboard to all consoles. The blue waters
are starting to have a red hue, and it remains to be seen if Nintendo’s brand promise can still deliver
or if they have to re-invent themselves again, to stay ahead.