Nintendo launches $50 million US marketing campaign

Following last weeks price cut for the GameCube in North America, Nintendo of America has unveiled a $50 million marketing campaign for the console in the run-up to Christmas, focused on the slogan "Who are you".

The campaign, which ties advertising for the GBA and the GameCube together into a single theme for the first time, will feature cinema ads, print ads, wall murals and billboards, in-store merchandising and ads on public transportation, as well as an online component on the Nintendo website.

The "Who are you" campaign will be a part of Nintendo's $100 million marketing push between now and the end of the year, with the other half of the fund earmarked for activities including promotion of key individual titles.

Focused largely on a set of creatives involving popular Nintendo characters heads taped onto famous photographs (such as Princess Peach on the Mona Lisa, or, er, Mario on the Berlin Wall), the campaign is designed to further promote Nintendo's strong range of internally developed characters and intellectual properties.

The cinema commercial running as a key part of the campaign is described as Nintendo's most ambitious ever, filmed in Asia and featuring more than 500 extras as well as significant Hollywood talent behind the camera; it will run in more than 10,000 cinemas across the USA ahead of films as diverse as The Matrix Revolutions and The Cat in the Hat.