Super Smash Bros Brawl – Another Example of Genius Nintendo Marketing

January 15th, 2008

smash bros brawl wii

Theres no denying that Nintendo’s marketing campaign over the past 2 years has been nothing short of genius. Hell, they even have the awards to prove it. The main reason for their success has come from the marketing of titles like Brain Training, Nintendogs and Wii Sports towards the casual and non gaming audience. But Nintendo have also been clever with advertising towards the more hardened gamer as well; the upcoming Super Smash Bros Brawl is probably the best example of this.

The genius all comes down to the Smash Bros Dojo website. If you are unfamiliar with the site basically its the official site for the new Smash Bros game. Every couple of days or so Nintendo release a new tidbit of information on the game which itself is the pure genius of it all.

The Dojo is genius for many reasons all stemming from the week day updates. The updates ensures that there is always something new for fans to look forward to. Whether it be a new move, character, level, whatever. This solves a lot of problems for Nintendo as it:

Generates Hype

The announcement of Solid Snake and Sonic as hidden characters was huge and instantly made a name for the website but in particular the updates. Since then there has been a lot of speculation of other video game cameos (such as MegaMan) so this keeps gamers coming back to the site to see whether or not the rumors are true.

Puts the Wii in the Headlines

Although the updates are usually very carefully portioned Nintendo release enough information and media with each update to warrant a solid news article. Hence there is always a possible news story for the gaming media to report on. This gives the game a generous amount of coverage for such a small amount news.

Makes the Delays Much More Tolerable

The Smash Bros series has an immense army of fanboy followers gripped by the balls and delays are something that they simply won’t tolerate. So the updates do a great job at making the fans feel as though they are not left out in the cold.

Infact Nintendo managed to cover up the game’s most punishing delay (into 2008) extremely well by announcing Snake and Sonic as cameo characters. If they’d just announced that the game was delayed then there would have been an uproar within the community and thats the last thing Nintendo want.

Conclusion

So as you can see by putting out a consistent stream of small pieces of information Nintendo are getting the most out of the little that they provide. And that itself is genius.

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