Nintendo Wii at Oscars 2008 – Best games console PR ever?
Sunday night saw the 80th Academy Awards ceremony take place, an event which is broadcast live around the world, and gets millions of television viewers in all territories. So where better than to market your console?
At the Oscars 2008, host Jon Stewart, best known for The Daily Show, was on his usual top form as he mocked everything and everyone. He also used a couple of props for some of his gags.
One of them was the Apple iPhone, which he used to watch Lawrence of Arabia on (or so he said), and introduced by joking how great technology was.
And then came the Wii, which was featured by way of Stewart being caught playing a round of tennis on Wii Sports by using the massive video screen normally reserved for clips of the nominated movies and actors.
Here’s the video to prove it really happened, and wasn’t merely a figment of my imagination:
There’s no doubt it was funny, and along with the iPhone skit, a nod at the technology which has found its way firmly in to popular culture over the past 12 months, but was it product placement by Nintendo or not?
I wouldn’t blame Nintendo if they had set this up, and it’s certainly not going to harm the already strong sales of the Wii. But I’d personally like to know if this was a brilliant piece of PR, or just Jon Stewart being down with the kids… and adults… and old aged pensioners, who play the Wii.
More pertinently, why didn’t either Microsoft or Sony think of it first? Unless the losses they have so far made on their consoles mean they just don’t have the budget for such high cost advertising opportunities such as this.
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2 Responses to “Nintendo Wii at Oscars 2008 – Best games console PR ever?”
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February 26th, 2008
Actually, no, that’s not how it works. The writers came up with the skits first, and then they contacted Nintendo and asked if Nintendo would be interested in the product placement in Oscar (which of course Nintendo said yes.)
Hollywood is in love with Apple and the Wii. Hollywood has always been a Mac town.
Nowadays, if you read any entertainment news at all, you’d notice that so many celebrities have casually mentioned their Wii and their fun time on it. Jessica Alba said she love working out with her Wii in an interview. Spielberg is working on Wii exclusive titles on his own. Kevin Smith loved his Wii so much that he ordered another custome-made one with his name on it. Wheldon said in an interview that he’s getting into video game because he started playing Wii with his kids.
Hollywood (the people who work in the creative part, not the business/corporate part) loves creativity and breakthrough, new ideas and such, the Wii represents what Hollywood admires.
February 26th, 2008
With the Wii and the Apple phone so similar in looks and quite contemporary I could see this happening more often