Problem is, as someone already said, when you actually have to explain to your consumers how your product is pronounced and other things. It is simply not intuitive and it's harder to approach.yeahduff wrote:I guess I just don't get it. The more I think about the name Wii, the more I like it. It's distinct, it looks great written down, makes a nice logo, and within a month of the release no one will think about any juvenile connotations the sound "we" has. It's a better name than PlayStation or SuperNintendo (for god's sakes), and definitely better than it's forerunner, Revolution. I don't see anything absurd about it, and if it turns out to be an April Fool's joke, I'll be disappointed only because it's not actually funny in any way. But really. Is it just the urine thing? What? Explain to me why it sucks so much.
While you're at it, explain to me why I care.
I mean, yes, it doesn't seem like a big deal. Once the pronouncing is explained for the 1000th time, people will stop asking that question. The wee connotation is a joke that will wear out. And in the end, in some perfect world where agressive marketing isn't important, if the product is quality, people will buy it.
For me, it starts to seem like a big deal when I realise that there was probably an entire marketing team of well-payed professionals working on it. Imagine what it looked like, preparing Wii for release, for months, their only job was probably thinking of a proper name and marketing strategy for the product. Knowing how important marketing is today, they knew that what they came up would be decisive.
In a way, for any of reasons stated above, what they had to come up, had to be perfect. But it's not, as response by people says. Did that professional marketing team didn't figure out that some people will find a toilet collotation in it? That others will be annoyed by the awkward spelling? That people will crack a joke about it? (revolution was bland and imaginative, but at least that means it was not irritating)
Actually, my guess is, they did and they probably went for the negative publicity stint. Even as we speak about it here or as those guys blog and blog about the new name, we are all giving them free advertisement.
Well, my beef about it is that I hate when advertisers are intentionally irritating us to raise a fuss. I hate commercials that intentionally try to annoy and I think that anyone who goes for "no publicity is bad publicity" strategy should be choked a bit until he turns blue.
I also dislike that they're trying to go for quirkiness (just like I'd dislike a Tiffany who spelled her name as TEEphanney). They are trying to be original, to think outside the box, and frankly, I think that they fail.
But I can't say that I really care that much. As said, I'm not a gamer and this is just another excuse to goof around.
