Nintendo Wii: Proof that Marketing people are STUPID

I read this on the “Game Over” column over at CNN.com.

“I think people have to look back and let it settle in,” [Perrin Kaplan, Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Affairs for Nintendo of America] said. “I’m sure people felt the same way when Google was named – or the iPod. Napster. Yahoo. There’s a whole host of unusual names that have become a part of everyday conversation and I think they’re viewed now as unique.”

Okay, see, the REST of America was actually USING the internet when those companies became popular, and we REMEMBER. If Google changed it’s name to “Hoohoo Dilly” then maybe you have a point, but Google, Napster, and Yahoo didn’t start out with a cool name that encapsulated their corporate world-view of the gaming industry and THEN switch. Revolution is a name that demonstrates a clear direction and everything that Nintendo has done since the Revolution was first announced has supported and strengthened the validity that yes, this console WILL BE a Revolution.

Now, a bunch of marketing people that obviously try too hard to be relevant, have decided that it’s more important to be unique just for the sake of being unique, than to have a Revolutionary concept. I seriously can’t express how these idiots could get it any more wrong than they did.

The fact that NoA’s chief marketing weasel is “sure people felt the same way” about Google… AND IPOD?

Perrin Kaplan needs to be fired. And whoever else thought up this awful “Wii” concept.

And… it looks like the rest of the blogosphere is feeling the same way:

The ButtonMasher, Penny Arcade, Space World, I could go on and on.

I’ll just end with Tycho’s astute observation:

Nintendo clearly felt the name was so cryptic it required a Rosetta Stone alongside to contextualize it, which doesn’t really speak to its deep strength or intuitive character.