Nintendo Wii more effective virally than PS3

Several years ago, I gave a talk at the AAAAs planning conference. Part of the topic was on observations we had made about what makes for a successful viral campaign.

We looked at things we had done as well as successful viral campaigns and came up with some useful principles. Two of them were:

1. Successful viral campaigns contain many more themes than traditional campaigns. In fact, successful viral campaigns purposely build in different themes (like the image on the right) that will resonate with different audiences. It is this very nature that allows them to spread across diverse groups of people, rather than staying within one group (sort of like this blog which is focused on planners like the image on the left).



2. Successful viral campaigns contain ideas that will resonate at 3 levels of media:
i) Micro media - emails, in-person conversations
ii) Middle media - blogs, discussion groups
iii) Mass media - TV, newspapers, etc.

They have ideas that you can imagine being reported in all 3 different levels.



In analyzing the news and spread of the two consoles, Nintendos Wii and Sony's PS3, you can see these principles in action. Wii clearly has the buzz crown and I am betting that this will translate into market leadership.

Here are some of the memes around Nintendo's Wii
Long lines
Sold out
ebay auctions
Fun
Wii brings in new gamers
Innovative
Wii elbow
Nintendonitis
Wii outsells PS3 2 to 1
Nintendo sued over remote
Zelda/games
Wii sports
Wii can keep you healthy
Broken straps
Wii remotes flying into televisions
Wii smacked baby across forehead
The must have holiday toy

As you can see, they reach far beyond the typical gamers and into various areas of general and vertical interest. There are surprising ideas here as well, ones that can (and have) be relevant at all 3 levels of media.

In contrast, here are the memes around PS3
Long lines
Line violence
Sold out
ebay auctions
Game store theft
Police officer theft/fraud
Blu Ray
Blu Ray a mistake
Sony updates firmware
Best graphics Ps3 or xbox 360?
Beaten by Wii in sales
PS1 downloads
Wii more fun
xbox 360 sells more
Fight night/games
Linux on PS3
PS creator demoted
HD 1080p

While the PS3 has lots of different themes around it, most of them appeal directly to the hardcore gamer/tech-head that you'd expect. There's little about the PS3 that's going to bring different interest into the brand. Because of that, it's unlikely that the mass media are going to be terribly interested in reporting PS3 news.

Google News gives wii the nod with 15,500 stories vs. PS3 with 14,900 stories
The difference is even greater on Google web search with 189,000,000 mentions of Wii vs. only 137,000,000 mentions for PS3.