Today's Rant: Wii Parties Are Pointless
Nintendo has recently rolled out a new marketing campaign focused on getting non-gamer types hyped up about the Wii. Nintendo has asked various non-gaming bloggers to be ambassadors for their new console. These "Wii Ambassador Parties" are like modern Tupperware parties and seem like a good idea. With the Wii's emphasis on multiplayer and casual content, getting people who wouldn't normally play a video game to play a video game seems like marketing dollars well-spent. From a marketer's standpoint, however, these parties suck and this has been proven with the first Wii Ambassador write up over at Club Mom.
Tracey C. was recently invited by Nintendo to be a Wii Ambassador and welcomed a group of Nintendo reps into her home, who then provided her with 4 tvs, 4 Wii consoles and plenty of food and drink to have a swinging party. According to Tracy's write up they dazzled her and the 35 invited people with freebies. Everyone had a grand old time. Tracy then wrote about the party on her blog. This is what Nintendo was going for, right? Tracy even mentions in her blog:
...Nintendo won me over. And I think I can say the same for the 35 other people that we're here. I'll betcha half of them have already pre-ordered their Wii Systems (which won't be available to the public until Nov. 19th). Which is I'm sure what this party set out to do.
Tracy focuses on the amount of free stuff that Nintendo gave her and her partygoers instead of focusing on why someone should give the Wii a chance. She goes on and on about Nintendo's hospitality and how they bought her free mexican food and booze, and gave the kids free DS Lite systems and games, she only mentions liking the Wii a couple times, and never in any qualitative manner.
"It was pretty impressive, I must say. And I'm one mom who is not easily impressed with these kinds of things. "
What does that mean for the average consumer? Not much.
The fact that 35 people at her party supposedly are going to preorder the Wii, and she was "impressed" sways no one. That's only 35 people that Nintendo sold with this party, at how much expense? If anything Tracy's write up was a ringing endorsement for the size of Nintendo's expense account. Here is how to do these parties right: TELL THE BLOGGER TO TALK ABOUT THE WII. Or at least get good writers. A good writer will keep all the "perks" of the event in the background, focusing on the subject at hand. Here we see a regular ol' mom talking about a fun party she had. She doesn't know better. Regular people don't know better. You spend all this time and money dazzling them with free stuff (like media usually gets, I might add) and they will focus on the free stuff. That's it.
I am not sure if the actual solution is to get gamers to host these parties or to just coach the bloggers a bit on some basic internet marketing, but as far as I am concerned their first Wii party was a failure. Not for Tracy (who I am sure had a freaking blast) but for the marketing strategy Nintendo is trying to accomplish here.
(image taken from http://picturethis.clubmom.com/)
What say you?!