Video Game Makers Ready Ad Blitzes : Marketing: Using vastly different strategies, Sega and Nintendo are trying to entice Christmas shoppers early in an uncertain economic market.
Michael Jackson has thrown his hat into the video game ring. In fact, his hat becomes a weapon that Mr. Moonwalker tosses at the bad guys--in a new video game.
Jackson is just one of a handful of big-name celebrities in Sega of America’s new video game marketing arsenal. Others include heavyweight boxing champion James (Buster) Douglas, San Francisco 49er quarterback Joe Montana and Los Angeles Dodgers Manager Tommy Lasorda. All will appear in Sega’s new video games as well as in a $10-million ad campaign being launched next week for Sega’s ballyhooed “Genesis” video game system.
At the same time, giant Nintendo also plans to launch its new $35-million ad campaign next week.
The two rivals are trying to attract early Christmas buyers in an uncertain economic market. Sega would like nothing better than to muscle into Nintendo’s dominance of the $3-billion video game industry. Analysts say Nintendo commands 80% of the market, compared to Sega’s 15%.
The two campaigns appear to have far different strategies. Nintendo won’t be using celebrities. Meanwhile, in a Nintendo-bashing ad campaign that vows, “Genesis does what Nintendon’t,” Sega mirrors the tactics of such celebrity-laden advertisers as Nike, L.A. Gear, Coke and Pepsi.
“Celebrities can work incredibly well, if they’re relevant to the product,” said Mike Agate of the Los Angeles consulting firm Mike Agate Associates. “But generally these people are horribly expensive. You’ve got to justify them by incremental increases in sales.”
Sega will pay about $10 million over the next two years to the celebrities it has signed, estimates Michael Katz, president of the consumer products division at Sega. He says Sega will get its money’s worth if the company can double annual sales of its popular Genesis system hardware to 1 million units. The hardware retails for about $189.
“Our celebrities deliver a very targeted message to a very jaded audience,” said Patrick Henry, management supervisor of the Los Angeles office of Bozell, the agency that created the campaign for Sega. Besides TV commercials, the campaign features a 69-second ad featuring Jackson that will be shown in movie theaters. The ad intermixes scenes from Jackson’s “Moonwalker” music video with animated action from the video games.
Jackson did more than Moonwalk for Sega. He made several trips to Japan to help design the video. In fact, the idea of featuring Jackson tossing his hat at pursuing villains in the video game came from Jackson himself, said Al Nilsen, Sega’s marketing director. “Every time someone came up with something he liked, he’d say, ‘The kids will love this.’ ”
“There’s always a high risk with celebrities,” said Katz. For example, boxer Douglas has yet to fight since he defeated Mike Tyson in February. Although Sega has a two-year contract with Douglas, some boxing experts believe that Douglas could lose his next fight. “If he loses, we will no longer be able to refer to him as world champion,” said Katz. “But hopefully the game would still sell.”
Shortly after former heavyweight champion Tyson lost to Douglas, Tyson’s name was taken off Nintendo’s boxing video game. “Our deal with him ran out about the time he got clobbered,” said Don Coyner, manager of advertising at the Redmond, Wash.-based domestic distributor, Nintendo of America Inc.
Tyson was replaced by a fictional character named “Mr. Dream.”
Maybe Nintendo learned some sort of lesson from that experience. “We believe the product can sell itself,” said Coyner. The campaign will mostly support GameBoy, a hand-held video game that Nintendo introduced last year.
Why all of this maneuvering in early September?
Video game makers are worried about the economy. Sega is even offering an extra game cartridge free to those who buy Genesis hardware before Oct. 31. “The economy now is not the strongest it’s ever been,” said Katz. “We want to get the product moving.”
