Our family just became one of the millions of U.S. households that have gone Wiiiiiiii…!  That’s Nintendo Wii…we got one…and all three of us are hooked!

Since I have never been hooked by video games, I pondered what was different about this console.  Nintendo has figured out a way to grab a part of the market that wasn’t spending $$ for consoles/games: Boomer Families.  Ingenious!

By focusing on making fitness fun and providing an experience that seems very customized (and also allows for good healthy competition), they appeal to people like me who need a workout buddy, a coach…in the comfort of my own home.  Ingenious!

And they have created experiences that allow families with kids of all ages, or even couples without kids, to use technology to interact with one another instead of zoning out in front of their computers or TVs.  Ingenious!

According to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Rachter, “over half of Wii households are nontraditional, meaning that they would not have bought a console but for the novelty of Wii.”

Not unlike their key competitors, Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo did the traditional ‘limited supply’ thing to work up frenzied demand when they launched their Wii for Christmas 2006…we are all used to that and still get sucked in by wanting our kids to have the coolest new thing. NOT so ingenious…

By going beyond that traditional ‘create demand’ marketing move, however, and actually offering a device that appealed to an entirely different market, Nintendo has been able to go from one of the lesser players in this $7B+ annual spending market for gaming hardware to being market leader, projected to sell 26 million units this fiscal year ending March 2010.

They were able to do this by finding a niche beyond what they were known for: kiddie games.  Hard core gamers dismissed Nintendo as not a serious alternative to the PS3 and XBox…but Nintendo didn’t sit in their comfort zone…they must have done some research and found a new market…with money…Boomers!  Ingenious!

The other thing they did was innovate their product by introducing an entirely different controller…a device that almost brings virtual reality into our homes…no more memorizing buttons to make things move around the screen…you move and your online ‘Mii’ moves…Ingenious!!

Their next marketing move looks to be reducing the price of their consoles by $50 to $199.99 for Christmas this year…watch for that…PS3 (drowning behind the Wii and Xbox currently) will try to regain its place in the market by cutting prices also…

If you haven’t checked out how the Wii could transform YOUR household into a place where people play games together vs. sequestered in separate rooms…think about it…I’m a convert!  I still chuckle at the pride my 15 yr old son had in helping me set up my Mii profile (customizing my hair and facial features and all!) and then seeing how good my balance and posture were compared to his, based on the original fitness tests the Wii administers to establish your baseline ‘fitness age’ and BMI…we were INTERACTING!

More important than all of those revenue and unit sales figures, Wii may have figured out a way for technology to bring families together vs. isolate them…Ingenious!

Join me at Keypoint Credit Union in Santa Clara on Wednesday evening Februrary 25th from 6 – 8pm for a free seminar about how nonprofits can use marketing to promote and grow their organizations.

In this tight economy, all the concerns of nonprofits — recruiting volunteers, fundraising, building awareness and delivering programs to key constituents — become just that much more complicated.

We’ll be sharing proven marketing and branidng techniques that can be applied to any nonprofit — big or small.

This seminar is being held in conjunction with the American Enterprise class project at Homestead High School in Cupertino, CA.

There’s no charge, but reservations are required. More information.

As you can tell from the series of posts that I’m making today, I was a bit behind on my reading. But many of these articles were definitely worth my time, like this one on the Silicon Valley WebGuild that shows a survey from the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) 2008 annual “Masters of Marketing” conference (October 2008).

The survey polled attendees via handheld devices about their marketing mix, budgets, plans, and tactics.

One of the questions asked attendees how much they plan to spend on marketing in 2009 vs. 2008: 20 percent expect to increase spending, 28% expect to hold stable, and 20% to decrease spending. I thought this bright news for marketing consultants given all the fear surrounding the current economy.

Read Full Article on Silicon Valley WebGuild

How will you adjust your current marketing and media plans to account for the recent downturn in the financial markets?
- Spending will be reduced (33%)
- Spending will be constant / marketing mix will be reallocated (33%)
- Surprisingly, we will spend more (27%)
- No changes, we will keep everything status quo (8%)

How does your CEO view your marketing efforts with respect to growth?
- As a brand-building investment (56%)
- As an unaccountable but necessary expense (21%)
- Not sure (15%)
- As an unnecessary expense (8%)

What is your preferred social media site for driving brand growth?
- None (32%)
- YouTube (20%)
- Facebook (18%)
- All (12%)
- LinkedIn (10%)
- MySpace (6%)
- Twitter (3%)

As you look toward 2009, how much do you plan to spend on marketing vs. 2008?
- Increase spending more than 10% (26%)
- Increase spending less than 10% (13%)
- Hold stable (28%)
- Decrease spending less than 10% (14%)
- Decrease spending more than 10% (19%)

Which discipline will offer your brand the largest opportunity for growth?
- Traditional 30-second spots (17%)
- One page advertisements in a newspaper/magazine (7%)
- Web advertising (16%)
- Social media integration (28%)
- Direct Marketing (7%)
- Grassroots, viral public relations (19%)
- Radio (5%)

How does your company currently measure brand growth?
- Sales and net income (70%)
- Third party brand equity valuations (15%)
- Shareholder value (9%)
- Household penetration (4%)
- Company culture (3%

There was an interesting little article on Webguild that looked at the role of social media in an economic downturn.

Social Media in the Economic Downturn

By Reshma Kumar, November 2, 2008

“Social Media, in light if our current depressed economic climate was a topic of discussion and on the minds of many in attendance at the Social Media Strategies Conference last week. Paraphrasing roughly Keynote, David Carter of Awareness’ take on this, he noted that with the current economic situation, there are more eyes on where the money goes. Therefore, social media strategies have to be spot on the first time around. So, how can we execute better? Identify and leverage on points of enthusiasm (e.g. press releases, conferences, events, etc.) and make them a part of your community. Identify watering holes for customers and pick the project that has the most obvious ROI. It doesn’t have to be about money, it can be about trust scores, community stocks, and to gather the required information needed to measure and analyze this event.

“Shel Israel, Social Media Strategist of Global Neighbourhoods, had this to say: What can we scale back and cut back on in the downturn? We really need to talk to our customers. Traditional advertising and PR have remained expensive in the last decade or so. Social Media is an answer to the problem of lean marketing and addressing the problem of how to stay close to the customers. Mark Yolton, SVP, Community Network of SAP said social media is being used at SAP for about 5 years now. It’s core to what SAP does today. Given today’s economy, there is a need to focus on cost efficiency. Reducing cost, agility, and reaching out to customers are the focus points of community network at SAP.

“What do you have to cut that you now can’t live without? According to Mark, as budgets get cut, be it training budget, marketing budget, traveling budget, etc., social media is the thing to turn to — the same way PR is being done by providing daily news summaries which includes blogger comments. There are serious discussions going on on blogs and inviting bloggers to product launches, company events, etc. is the thing to do — giving them the privilege because they’re the ones who are asking the best questions.

http://www.webguild.org/2008/11/social-media-in-the-economic-downturn.php