Wii the People

The whole point of PR is that a message is best coming from some elses mouth, not yours. Offline, this can translate to endorsements by celebrities and media outlets - which is all well and good, if we grant that these voices have credibility.

However this Christmas, Nintendo had the good fortune to receive one of the most glowing, energised and downright newsworthy endorsements of the season for their Wii computer games console on videosharing website Youtube. The plaudit, uploaded on Christmas Day, came from a child who is being called The Wii Scream Boy. Before you watch this video, I advise that you turn your computer speakers down a little.



Perhaps "glowing" isn't the best word to describe what you have just seen. There is actually something quite spinechilling, even evil, about that noise and that devilish little dance. But this is precisely why the video has become the viral holiday hit, receiving nearly 200,000 Youtube views in only ten days, ample online and offline press coverage (including airtime on ABC and Fox), and of course the obligatory Youtube remixes - all without PR execs at Nintendo having to lift a finger. Compare this to the flopped PSP viral, where Sony staff worked a little too hard only to have their efforts lampooned across the net.

The Wii Scream video is a media/press win, an authetic hearts and minds triumph, and in terms of sending out a crystal clear marketing message (ie. your child will go absolutely spare if you get him one of these) it really couldn't be any better. So have Nintendo PR people simply been sitting on their backsides waiting for Web 2.0 to give them a lucky break? Or is there something more calculated about all of this?

I was undecided until I saw another viral win for Nintendo from earlier in the year: Why every guy should buy their girlfriend Wii Fit.



After watching the video carefully - and painstakingly tracking its spinoffs - I have had to conclude that Wii Underwear Girl (and to a lesser extent Wii Scream) must be the result of intelligent design.

I'm not saying that Nintendo set these videos up - they are, broadly speaking, authentic*. Rather I'm referring to the way in which the design of the product itself has impacted on its media exposure. Unlike most other consoles (which to me connote teenagers sitting alone in darkened rooms) the Wii's "space stick" and pressure pad controllers spark the imagination and encourage outward expression, lending the product particularly well to these kinds of web 2.0-friendly displays and to media interest in general. Its almost as if the Wii's unusual interfaces were designed specifically with its reputation and future media-worthiness in mind.

Indeed it seems like environmental tracking played a real part in the design of the Wii, even down to choosing its name. When Nintendo's American public relations manager spoke about the console back in 2006, the sentiments were of participation and revolution - strongly echoing the "We the people" ethic of social media websites like Youtube and suggesting that the PR brains at Nintendo knew where they were going long before the product hit the shelves.

So which other products are particularly well suited to our modern media environment? And are there limits to the sorts of products which social media can help to promote? Comments if you will...and a Happy New Year to you all!

*although, the people in the Wii Fit vid do actually work in advertising, and the video was intended as a portfolio piece demonstrating how to make a kick-ass viral. However, neither were in the pay of Nintendo nor was the company aware of its making. And the girl is actually the guy's girlfriend. Either way the video has had over 7,000,000 hits.