Fils-Aime on letting the consumer run with it

In a recent interview conducted by The Hub’s Tim Manners, Nintendo celebrity-evangelist and Nintendo US president and chief operating officer Reggie Fils-Aime discusses the hows and whys of Wii’s winning ways.

Fils-Aime notes that right from the start, Nintendo had a clear, a precise game plan on how they’re going to market the Wii, ever since the announcements were made back on September 14th in terms of price, launch dates, and supply. But he explains that the one thing they were really good at doing is letting things go.

In light of the whole community-driven “Web 2.0” thing that’s going on at the moment, Nintendo was able to capitalize having their community do all the buzz-generation and marketing for them. He notes in the interview:

On the other hand, when we talk about letting things go with the consumer, at the moment we first ran our TV advertising, it was immediately posted on YouTube. Since that initial  posting, we’ve had more than three million views of all of our various television commercials, with consumers rating it highest in a range of different honors.

We had blogging and other consumer generated content all talking about how excited consumers were – and all of that activity continues. We have people doing Wii parties and filming the making of their Wii characters from the system. That’s where the consumer activity owns a lot of the marketing activity and a lot of the buzz generation, and they’re doing a fantastic job.

Perhaps what seems to be the difference here is that Nintendo feels very comfortable having the online population have a sense of ownership when it comes to their products. Feel free to correct this blogger, but as far as he knows, so far, there isn’t a reported incident of Nintendo vilifying or pressuring blogs to not post rumors about their product, even throughout that whole Wiimote strap hullabaloo, or that Hold-your-Wii death.

It seems that their goal is to keep the Wii experience, even its presence on the web, a positive thing. Take for example the Wii’s launch. Fils-Aime notes:

We worked hand-in-glove with these retailers to make sure that there was ample product, that the systems for handling the midnight openings were crystal clear. And to put it in perspective, two days earlier, Sony did midnight openings that were abominable. There were shootings and arrests. It was just abominable.

Our midnight launches went off without a hitch. My own 17-year-old son was at a midnight opening, and certainly I felt comfortable and confident that he could be there and have a positive experience and that’s exactly what happened.

How has Sony reacted to supposedly “positive” rumors about their property? Well… okay this blogger will cut it here. He fears the pitchforks… Just read the whole interview yourself via our “read” link below.

In a recent interview conducted by The Hub’s Tim Manners, Nintendo celebrity-evangelist and Nintendo US president and chief operating officer Reggie Fils-Aime discusses the hows and whys of Wii’s winning ways.

Fils-Aime notes that right from the start, Nintendo had a clear, a precise game plan on how they’re going to market the Wii, ever since the announcements were made back on September 14th in terms of price, launch dates, and supply. But he explains that the one thing they were really good at doing is letting things go.

In light of the whole community-driven “Web 2.0” thing that’s going on at the moment, Nintendo was able to capitalize having their community do all the buzz-generation and marketing for them. He notes in the interview:

On the other hand, when we talk about letting things go with the consumer, at the moment we first ran our TV advertising, it was immediately posted on YouTube. Since that initial  posting, we’ve had more than three million views of all of our various television commercials, with consumers rating it highest in a range of different honors.

We had blogging and other consumer generated content all talking about how excited consumers were – and all of that activity continues. We have people doing Wii parties and filming the making of their Wii characters from the system. That’s where the consumer activity owns a lot of the marketing activity and a lot of the buzz generation, and they’re doing a fantastic job.

Perhaps what seems to be the difference here is that Nintendo feels very comfortable having the online population have a sense of ownership when it comes to their products. Feel free to correct this blogger, but as far as he knows, so far, there isn’t a reported incident of Nintendo vilifying or pressuring blogs to not post rumors about their product, even throughout that whole Wiimote strap hullabaloo, or that Hold-your-Wii death.

It seems that their goal is to keep the Wii experience, even its presence on the web, a positive thing. Take for example the Wii’s launch. Fils-Aime notes:

We worked hand-in-glove with these retailers to make sure that there was ample product, that the systems for handling the midnight openings were crystal clear. And to put it in perspective, two days earlier, Sony did midnight openings that were abominable. There were shootings and arrests. It was just abominable.

Our midnight launches went off without a hitch. My own 17-year-old son was at a midnight opening, and certainly I felt comfortable and confident that he could be there and have a positive experience and that’s exactly what happened.

How has Sony reacted to supposedly “positive” rumors about their property? Well… okay this blogger will cut it here. He fears the pitchforks… Just read the whole interview yourself via our “read” link below.