Nintendo will attempt to steal some thunder from Sony Computer Entertainment of America's looming PlayStation 2 launch next month with a $12.5 million campaign for a new Zelda title that takes a "War of the Worlds" approach in blending reality and fiction.
Creative, via Leo Burnett, Chicago, expands on the apocalyptic plot of Zelda: Majora's Mask, which has the moon breaking out of orbit and heading for the earth, thanks to an evil spell, cast by the dreaded Skull Kid. According to the plot, there is one chosen person who can possibly save the earth by solving puzzles and reversing the spell.
Teaser ads showing crowds of stunned people in a city and in a barren field looking skyward hit last week. Meanwhile, z-science.com, a Nintendo site, is holding a nationwide talent search for The One, presumably the planet's savior. The next leg of ads, due in October, will depict The One, a young boy, having been chosen and the ads will reveal crowds watching the moon as he plays on a monitor to save the planet.
Creative will build to the showdown on Oct. 26, the day the world is slated to end, and by the way, the day both Zelda and PlayStation 2 are set for release. Print ads will show a New York cityscape with an enlarged moon heading closer with the copy "The only thing worse than the weight of the world on your shoulders is the weight of the moon."
George Harrison, vp-marketing and corporate communications, said Nintendo wanted to highlight a strong title in the face of SCEA's looming $150 million push for PS2. "While this isn't on the scale of the PlayStation 2 launch, we wanted to make a statement on N64," he said.
Nintendo will follow that release with a $6 million campaign for Donkey Kong Country for its Game Boy handheld sets, a $6.5 million effort for Banjo Tooie and a $5 million campaign for Mickey's Speedway USA, all in November.
Nintendo is also planning to release a 32-bit version of Game Boy called Game Boy Advance, in July 2001. Nintendo's next-generation 128-bit console, called Gamecube, is due in late 2001, pitting it against Microsoft's unit, currently called X-box.