Nintendo's Wii blitz campaign [update 1]

Guten Tag und willkommen zum Nintendo Blitz. Yesterday the news broke that Nintendo will spend over $200 million marketing the Nintendo Wii. A lot of readers said advertising isn't everything, and they're absolutely right. To back up the ad buys, Nintendo is also unleashing a massive publicity blitz across various demographics into our general culture.

In the last month, the Wii was featured in a special two-part episode of South Park, along with Time, Fortune, National Public Radio, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal -- mind you, all in a positive light. The only bad thing Fortunesaid was the Wii's name was scary.

What happens next? For the sake of brevity we'll bullet point it after the jump.

• Wii Mall Experience: Beginning Nov. 15 interactive kiosks will be set up in 25 Westfield shopping centers. A mall conglomerate like Simon's.

• Blender magazine with have Nintendo Fusion Tour headliners Hawthorne Heights talking about Wii in the December issue.

• "Urban Gaming Hours" for urban "influencers" like Vice [sic] magazine and Def Jam Records employees.

• RISE magazine will feature teen athletes talking about their Wii experience.

• The midnight Wii launch at Toys R Us in Times Square and Universal CityWalk in LA is a guaranteed 11PM news feature.

• Brand partnerships: 7-Eleven will give away 711 consoles. 7-Eleven will also introduce the "StrawberrWii Banana" Slurpee. Pringles chips will have themed canisters and give away 100 consoles through a contest.

• Comedy Central will give away a Wii every hour during Thanksgiving weekend. The Wii will also be featured in a series of spoofs on reality shows.

And blitz info straight off the wire for TV:

• Wii Would Like to Play: Wii's central ad campaign follows two friendly Japanese men who bring Wii to people's homes to demonstrate how easy and fun it is for everyone to play. Stephen Gaghan, who wrote the screenplay for and directed Syriana and won a best screenplay Oscar for writing Traffic, directed the four spots. The director of photography is John Seale, who won an Oscar for best cinematography on The English Patient and was nominated for Oscars for Rain Man, Cold Mountain and Witness. The spots begin airing the week of Nov. 13.

• Nick @ Nite: Wii will be featured on the Nov. 24 Nick@Nite episode of Road Crew. The spots feature a family from Long Island that finally finds something they can all enjoy together -- playing Wii.

• Nickelodeon: A Wii ad begins Nov. 20. The 60-second spot shows a dad mistaking the Wii Remote for his television remote control. Dad becomes immersed in the fun, and soon the whole family joins in.

• TeleFutura: Nintendo will be at November auditions in New York for the highly successful international singing competition show Objetivo Fama (Objective: Fame) to allow contestants to sample the Wii console and calm their pre-audition jitters.

• Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Discovery Kids Network: A feature scheduled to air in December showcases kids, parents and teachers sampling Wii at a school event and sharing their experiences.

(Update 1: Minor fixes including Westfield mall info)