Shigeru miyamoto brief biography of marketing

A key to Nintendo’s success, especially in the 90s, was their ability to absorb mascots from their titles into the larger identity of the brand. Characters like Mario, Pikachu, Link, and Samus began to be associated with not just their respective series, but with Nintendo as a whole.

This use of iconic characters to build the brand’s image led some publications at the time to compare Nintendo to the Walt Disney Corporation.

Nintendo would begin to invest greatly in advertising their upcoming games once they had to start competing with Sony and other companies in the mid to late 90s.

In 1998, they spent $10 million on publicity for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in order to out-compete Sony’s Tomb Raider 3 which released the same year. Ocarina of Time would go on to break industry records and sell out completely on its release, causing a cartridge shortage in US stores.

One of the best examples of how Nintendo would use merchandisi