Nintendo DS dating simulation game Company Takes Marketing into a whole different level

In my second installation of 'wtf Japan', I'm going to talk about how a company takes marketing into a new level of...weirdness.

Love Plus is a Nintendo DS love simulation game, you get to control the main character and strives to obtain one of the 3 main female characters as your girlfriend. This game has been a huge hit in Japan and even outside of Japan (to those who understand Japanese anyway, since the game is not translated).

In one of the scenes in the game, you take one of the girls to a hot springs resort to spend your weekend there. Konami, the creator of the game decides to contact the resort (its an actual resort) to provide a special package so that the players can bring their ds and spend their weekend there with their character.

The room is designed just like the one in the game, with all the entertainments in the game. Konami also promises that they will give special character sprites for the game as well as a slew of contents.

Now ignore the oh-my-god-wtf-you're-taking-your-ds-and-dating-it! comment and lets take a look at it from a marketing perspective.

Konami has identified that they have a core group of loyal customers and decided to give special treatment to them. Ensuring that those customers remain loyal and would just scoop out whatever crap that Konami decides to spout with their Love Plus game.

What is this, I don't even D:

I'd say its a brilliant marketing strategy, although personally, those people need to get a girlfriend.

Oh and the price? Only 39,800Yen (roughly 500 AUD)

Cute Anime Rice? Only in Japan!

Following up a post from Matt's blog, using anime characters to promote a company has been a common practice in Japan to quite a few companies. Since I'm an avid follower of the Japanese culture (especially subculture), I decide to dedicate the next few blogpost in talking about marketing for Japan subculture.

Take a look at this rice company.

Just with the addition of having a cute anime character in the packaging has increased the exposure of the brand and the company reportedly having a huge spike of sales . As quoted "Sales of the rice, which is mostly done through mail order, reached over 2,500 individual orders in the first month of sale, totaling 30 tons worth of the 5kg and 10kg packages." And this campaign has been going on for some time.

For a simple explanation, by the addition of having that in the packaging it creates a sort of 'novelty' feel to the item. Fans would like to associate themselves with those characters and thus willing to spend money to get it.

Although myself argue that it reduces the potential target market to a niche market or in retrospect it is good especially if the company's objective is to target the niche market.

I myself don't see myself eating a bag of rice with a picture of an anime character on the package.