Wii Evangalize – Creating Buzz that works for your brand

Well this is not exactly about advertising…

How much is goodwill and positive buzz worth for a company?

I would say a lot. Way more than they know. Consider the last E3. Another year, another E3 and as usual there were bombs and da bombs. There are two companies that I want to focus on. After a month or two after E3 I was expecting the tone of the coverage and fanboy reaction to change, but fortunately or unfortunately it didn’t.

Sony – The Cool Goliath

No brand name is better known for it’s consumer electronics than Sony.

At E3, PS3 bombed by most accounts. Of course it is not fair to judge and make a call on a Console that is not even out yet, but already here are several strikes against it. The price at appx US$ 600, the seemingly ripped-off controller and the prerendered game demos. And some unfortunate quotes from the head honchos of Sony about – how the revolution will not start until Sony says so – or something to that effect.

Even after a month or so after E3, Sony continues to receive negative coverage – from the claim that we don’t need PCs, when there is the PS3 or the news that allegedly says that we cannot resell our old PS3 games, or an earlier news that PS3 has been downgraded less USB, a crippled CPU. Now some of it is news and most likely true, others are probably rumors.

All of that has generated some negative buzz on the net. While any PR is good PR, in the case of PS3, it might not hold true. Now they need some serious damage control to correct that or somehow turn it to their advantage. Besides, read anything about PS3 these days and you will see that it is negative.

But will PS3 fail? I doubt it, purely because of the number of PS fanboys out there. You heard it here first!!

Wii – Will it really rock?

People seem to think so, sometimes perception is reality.

Wii – this is Da Bomb. Despite or because of the weird sounding name that came out a couple of days before E3, it has already generated enough Buzz, discussion, word of mouth interest on the net – and that type of exposure is all good for it.

Then people got to see the controler in action – or like me saw it on Google Video or Youtube. More than anything that is also another “talk,” point. And from what I have seen, it is mostly good.

And the type of games they are offering – while graphically will not be competitive to PS3 or the 360 – also received good feedback – mainly because people do believe that they will offer better gameplay and pure fun, that has been missing from the Consoles in the last couple of years. While this remains to be seen, another plus for the Wii.

And did I mention the price? Did someone say US$ 200? Wasn’t PSP selling for US$ 150 earlier?

That all adds up to the benefit of Wii. Somehow, there sure is a lot of positive stuff on Wii on the net, and somehow Wii managed to get gamers to create good buzz about their product. Now that is pure Word Of Mouth Campaign (kinda like the banner ad that we now seem to have on the Vine)..

Verdict

The only thing for Wii to watch out for is to keep the pressure up and not make any silly gaffs like Sony did. Of course the PS3 apologist are saying that Sony, which is a company known for it’s marketing savvy will not make such silly mistakes. Perhaps Sony simply underestimated fanboy response.

Personally, I think that Sony could have done better at E3. It was a great opportunity missed, and Wii somehow managed to steal PS3’s thunder – not to mention that of the 360.

Of course the real test will be when the products ship – will Wii disappoint or create even more buzz? Can PS3 somehow manage to make a comeback and once again be the king of the hill? I just can’t wait to see!!

Oh, I forgot to answer my own question of how much goodwill is worth to a company….

PS3 priced at US$ 500 expects to sell about 6 Million units by March 2007. Wii also has the same target but at a much lesser price of US$ 200. Doing the math, Sony will stand to win or lose 3 Billion US$, while Wii will be about 1.2 Billion US$.

How is that for chump change??