Episode 19 - Think Like Nintendo - Breaking Outside the Box and Leveraging Long-Term Results

_{WHY SHOULD YOU THINK LIKE NINTENDO? AND WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MARKETING?}

Breaking the Mold

• Nintendo broke onto the video game scene in the early 80’s and helped reimagine the home video gaming market.
• Here we are almost 40 years later all of their original competitors are gone and their new competitors are basically doing the same thing year after year.
• Nintendo faced a huge problem in the Gamecube era until they were selling consoles at a loss.
• Every generation since they’ve taken a different approach to gaming. We got a handheld console with two screens, a motion control console, and now a modular one.
• Instead of just doing what they had done before and bowing to the market pressures of the best graphics and hardware.
• Their games already sold like crazy, so they broke the mold.
• We need to think this way as marketers. If you reach a point where what you are doing isn’t working, sometimes the right answer is to change the subject line, other times it’s time to blow up your email strategy and come up with something new.

Think Long Term

• Another aspect of thinking like Nintendo is the longevity. For those that don’t know, Nintendo was founded in 1889 as a playing card company. Not only that but they have literal billions in the bank and have the room to take these risks.
• Think about your marketing in the same way, of course you need leads, and need to produce results, but thinking in the long-term allows you to create strategies that can take larger risks and where you can start to innovate. 

Image credit: Wikipedia