Nintendo’s Japanese marketing team is very clever indeed. In terms of ability to educate the public about new technology, I’d put them right up alongside the strategists behind Apple’s TV campaigns. The latest example of this handy knack for effective Nintendo TV ads began airing on Japanese telly yesterday, and you can see the spot right here.

The commercial is all about building anticipation for a subsequent round of Wii Fit ads, which will begin showing later this month, in advance of Wii Fit’s December 1st release in Japan. But it’s what the ad doesn’t say that makes it a winning campaign. All we see is one “Balance Wii Board”, as Japanese grammar would have it, one pair of “lady legs”, and a TV. Which is enough to make Japanese viewers ask, “What’s that all about, then? Something to do with that Wii I bought? I’ll have to investigate…” (Or, in the case of my better half, a simple “What’s that?!”)

The monologue voiced in this ad is simple to the extreme, and the information cleverly omitted is the information everyone will be listening out for when the next wave of “adverts for that Wii board thingy” are broadcast. The narrator just says this:

“This is a board. You put this board in front of your TV and stand on it. Balance Wii Board.”

We want one!

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 8:13 am by WiiWii
Columns & Opinion, Hardware, Video.