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When we think of brands, we think of the Nike Swoosh and the Golden Arches of McDonalds.  But I tell you now, these are logos not brands.  Or sometimes, a jingle rings in our ears like “Taste of a news generation” or “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands”.  But same goes…these are not a brand, these are slogans.  So what is a brand?  A brand is not an image or good copy… a brand is a promise. The corporate slogan is a way to communicate their promise, and their logo is the picture worth a thousand words. You might be sitting back and thinking a bit about this, but don’t you fret.  My aim here is to spend time studying popular brands and examine their brand and explain how they use their logo and slogan and other marketing tricks to deliver on their promise.

Nintendo is one of the oldest video gaming companies in the market, and surprisingly enough, their logo has stayed relatively unaltered throughout their entire existence in the consumer electronic market space.  Not to say they’ve had their ups and downs over the years, in fact, they almost completely disappeared into the video game graveyard until they miraculously took a 90 degree turn in their corporate strategy to save their company.  During these dips and truns throughout their history, Nintendo had to constantly focus and then re-focus their brand promise to their customers as their business changed.

Logo

Entertainment brands are unique in that their products are marketed more heavily then than the manufacturer.  But once that product’s shelf-life is over (or in this case playability), than the product brand is extinguished.  A movie studio like MGM can maintain their lion logo for almost a century because, frankly, we care more about the movie then the distributor.  So even thought Nintendo has many logos for their many products, the Nintendo has no need to change it’s logo and as a result, its brand benefits from it’s longevity.  Nintendo’s logo was adapted  in the 1970s when they purchased the rights to the Magnavox Odyssey and dove head first into the digital gaming market.  Simply, the logo racetrack oval and typeface was easy to recreate in an 8-bit pixel world, and it was was futuristic and modern. The red logo could be argued to represent life and fun, but when you only have 8 colors to choose from, red is probably as good as it gets.

“Now You’re Playing with Power”

Nintendo was just another player in the coin-op arcade market earning their money one quarter at a time (lined up on the ledge of the screen).  Each of the major players had their marquee game:  Nintendo had Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong, Sega had Zaxxon and Cliffhanger, Atari had Asteroids, and Missile Command.  One thing Atari had that nobody else had was the Atari 2600, which gave them the  ability to let their teenage customers go home, back to their living rooms, and keep blasting asteroids and thwarting alien attacks.  Everyone wanted in and soon the market flooded with the likes of the ColecoVision, and Intellivision. In 1983, it got so bad that  the market saturated to the point of mass bankruptcies to just about everyone.  Some call it patience and foresight, others call it sluggish market reaction, but Nintendo never released their console and survived the video game crash.  It’s not that people didn’t want to play video games anymore.  It’s that the games sucked!  Visually the home versions were bad, block pixel games with pathetic user experiences.  They paled in comparison with the colorful, entertaining, and artistic coin-op versions that they were trying to emulate.  Gamers did the quick math… “If I save all my quarters and buy this console, I could play a crappy version of PacMan… um… I’d rather pay the 25 cents”.  So off they went, on their 10-speed…with the baseball card flapping in their spokes…to the laundromat…to try to beat MMK’s high score.

Nintendo had their console ready for the market two years in 1985. The NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) was a console game like no other.  It offered games like Super Mario Bros, Excitabike, and Donkey Kong Jr. and they were perfect renditions of their arcade versions.  But it’s like being the best dressed for the prom, but coming a day late.  The home console market was a wasteland, and the gamers had to be drawn back to the console market again.  So Nintendo adapted their famous slogan Now You’re Playing with Power.  They recognized that the gamers will return if they promised that the SNES would be so powerful that you never have to go to an arcade ever again.  Super Mario Bros was still at it’s lineups at the arcade so their marketing blitz used their little Italian friend as a mascot to re-enforce the promise that this gaming system would not disappoint (these were the seeds of Mario himself as a brand).  This NES commercial was aired during the late 1980s and not only did it show cutting edge gaming technology but it strategically added screen shots of  Super Mario Bros, and Kung Fu Master, and depending on how old you are, made it clear to the arcade patrons that in fact the NES is powerful!

Nintendo rode the wave of success and because a mainstay in living rooms and dorm rooms for a better part of a decade.  They applied their strict standard of quality gaming to subsiquent gaming systems like the Super NES ( Now you’re playing with power. Super power.) and the Game Boy (Now you’re playing with portable power.).

“Get N, Or Get Out!”

Gamers stopped going to arcades because, they can sit on their butt, and play hours and hours of Zelda, Final Fantasy and evolution of the Mario franchise into Super Mario World.  (insert “No-Friendo joke here).  Nintendo instituted strict rules for title releases to ensure programmers created games that were worth of the Nintendo Seal of Approval.  Games were so engaging, and elaborate that any other competitor would never be able to get a foothold in this lucrative industry.  But one of the most difficult part of console marketing is when it’s time for the technology to changes and in 1992 Nintendo knew they have to once again convince their faithful customers, to drop their old console in the trash, and buck up for the next big thing.  But during this transition, a new gunslinger rode into town.  Sony decided to use their mountains of money to start developing a 32-bit console that was scheduled to release in 1995 (SNES was 16-bit). But  Nintendo wasn’t worried – their 64-bit Nintendo 64 was to release shortly after, and all would be right in Mario’s world.  Nintendo stayed true to their brand that cutting edge technology and an established stable of reliable game brands would prove that they still had the power.

Yes, Sony has deep pockets and they blitzed the Japanese and North American markets.  And yes, Sony knew consumer electronics better than anyone.  And yes, they had this new Compact Disc technology which very modern (indeed).  And yes, they had the sweet, sweet, thumb controllers.  Oh yes, these all played a hand in the mass popularity of the Sony PlayStation, but there was a bigger demise which caused Nintendo to go into a tailspin for over a decade.

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Tags: Atari 2600, brand, ColecoVision, Donkey Kong, Games, history, identity, logo, Nintendo, Nintendo Entertainment System, slogan, Super Mario Bros, Video game, video games