Topic: Does The Public Know About Wii U?

I for one and not looking foward to the canned family/celebrity demo ads. You know the ones where they make you a fly on the wall as someone "discovers" how the new console works. Nintendo is obsessed with them...... and they probably work pretty well but I'm over it.

basically a very, very scripted version of the hands on things game journalists do

edit:
ad sized versions of this minus Iwata basically

Yeah, I never said I liked those ads

I can see the demographic they're aimed at though and I'm sure they're actually quite successful at it.

There would be no point whatsoever putting together a TV ad for Nintendo hardcore gamers.

Or a good script to read.

Also, with a lot of film scripts the general rule is 1 page = 1 minute.

So it wouldn't even get close to half a page.

Advertisements are a little different - they are generally far more dense in terms of content than an equivalent amount of time for film. It works out at about a page of dialogue for 30 seconds of screentime.

There you go.

And the only way I would be persuaded by one of those celebrity ads if it was one by gaga.
And I wouldn't be the only one.

It's ironic that that man was an 'informed consumer' and he thinks that the Wii U gamepad is simply a 'gimmicky add-on' to the Wii.

That basically sums up the general public's conception and confusion of the Wii U, if they've actually heard about it.

The ironic thing is that Nintendo has a HUGE opportunity to get millions of people interested and excited for the Wii U. I mean, everyone in that video had heard of the Wii (most of them even had one, but just sometimes played golf on Wii Sports) and had played it, and liked it. Nintendo could take that to their advantage. Most average-joe westerner has probably heard of the Wii and, if marketed right, Nintendo could get everyone very excited for the Wii U. They just need to market it right and advertise clearly, saying that it's, firstly, NOT the Wii, but it's its SUCCESSOR, and, with its new gamepad, it adds a whole new level of interactivity, experiences and overall fun. Then they need to say that it supports the Wii remotes that most people have collecting dust in their cabinet, and it supports old Wii games! They need a clear message and intentions. But, Instead, no one has heard of it, and those who had are neither not interested or think it's an add-on the the current Wii. This is thanks to Nintendo.

"Take your old Wii console, THROW IT IN THE BIN.... NO WAIT DON'T THROW OUT YOUR CONTROLLERS!!!! YOU'LL NEED THOSE FOR <drumroll> the new Wii U! Here's some awesome games your Wii just won't be able to do! AND LOOK AT THE NEW GAME PAD CONTROLLER YOU GET! YOU CAN TOUCH IT!"

Well it's rather rough for an advertisement but is that the kinda thing you were thinking in forms of advertisement PoshSnivy?

exception being when they do this before a movie like Dark Knight Rises at a packed cinema

The "this game is awesome, here's some footage.... if you're interested you probably know where to get it" strategy. Works for gamers, fails for mainstream consumers.

Hohohoho you may be laughing now, but we'll see who's laughing tonight when you wake up for a glass of water...

Oh for sure Cinema advertising is great for Games companies. Relatively cheap, and it's far easier to know who will be sittin in those seats - unless you sponsor a tv show (even more expensive) you can't be as sure that gamers are going to be watching the random show your ad pops up on compared to being perfectly sure just about every gamer in town is going to see Batman.

Sure, that's roughly what I'm at. I don't think that's exactly what Nintendo is going to do, but it would be better than what they're doing now in terms of advertisements; NOTHING!

You know what we need? The Wizard 2. "I love the Gamepad. It's so bad."

At least the older lady had a fair idea of what the name could be - "an update to Nintendo Wii 1".

While most of the cringe-worthy responses in this video were laughable (Kinectimals on Wii?), I do hope to see some Wii U ads circulating soon. Then again, I haven't seen much television to know whether or not they are starting (last I heard there was a Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Wii U Edition commercial on the airwaves).

I'm also glad to see the scope of the Wii's popularity. Everyone knew what it was, and it just blew my mind because Nintendo just did it - they were able to sell the system to a brand new audience and it worked out big-time. Hell if I could ask any of the older folks in this video if they knew what the GameCube was.

Well, my mum doesn't know about it... Seriously nintendo, you need to get metaknight to spam some ads everywhere.
I do think that the wii U will have to rely heavily on advertisements. The news media wouldn't spend their time showing off a console that isn't mind blowing.
Having EB games pasting wii U posters around the shop does almost nothing.

Ok, lets say for the sake of argument that upto ~2million units will be sold before the end of the year and that over the life of the console they'll sell anything from 50mill to 100mill units. These early users will be anything from the first 1% to 4% of purchasers. Now there is a thing called the "Technology adoption lifecycle" that would describe those people in the first 1-4% as people who, amongst other things, were very high information consumers. They know what they're getting because they're reading all the niche media already so the in store marketing is purely there to convince them that they should get it at one shop rather than the other.

What you're talking about is driving interest for the majority of consumers. Currently pretty much no amount of marketing in the world could convince them to line up on launch day or pre-order it. They need to be convinced by peer pressure and word of mouth which happens in the many months after launch through the walking billboards who were there in the first 10-15%. You know when your friends ask you what your new gadget is? That's what's happening there. At that stage marketing is needed but it's just the extra nudge for an already half convinced consumer.

The GENERAL Public probably doesn't know about the Wii U or, more importantly, doesn't care. The GAMERS know what the Wii U is and (even if they don't want it) acknowledge it's existence. Asking random people off the street who haven't played games since the Atari 2600 isn't a fair and accurate way to see if "people" know about the Wii U.

What they should have done is gone to GameStop, GAME, or any other gaming retailer and ask customers as they walk in. That way, the part of the community that gives two _____ about gaming would be able to give their opinion, if they have one.

Well said. They should have done as you suggested, then it would have been a little more, I don't know, ACCURATE.

Picking a very select sample to see if somethiny as general as the public knows of the wiiu is nowhere near accurate... It's biased.

Depends on what your goal is. If you're goal was to work out how much the general public knows about the Wii U then it would be biased. If your goal was something more useful like working out what the public's opinion of the Wii U was you'd get better results by going to people who know more about it.

You and I disagree on a whole lot of stuff, but holy crap I love you right now man.