This paper starts with the discussion of the principles of just noticeable difference and just meaningful difference, shows Nintendo 3D as an example of those principles in action, demonstrates how big trends have been used as the frame of reference during Nintendo 3D marketing campaign, views people’s need for Nintendo 3D from the perspective of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and from the perspective of psychological needs, discusses Nintendo 3D’s product differentiation, shows the basic characteristics of consumer personality and the Five-Factor Model as those are applied to Nintendo 3D marketing campaign, points out the limitations of motivational research, and rounds up its behavioral analysis of the target segment by giving a brief overview of psychographic personality segmentation as this type of research is related to Nintendo 3D marketing.
Nowadays, the market of video games is developing at high speed. The major rivals – Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft – try to create new products and attract as much buyers as possible.
The new product presented by Nintendo this year – Nintendo 3D – has enabled the company to achieve high level of sales. To do this, Nintendo has used the principles of just noticeable difference (JND) and just meaningful difference (JMD).
Those two principles were developed by Karl Weber long time ago. The principle of JND is based on Weber’s assumption that consumers “detect differences between stimulus value”1.
Thus, to attract consumers’ attention, it is necessary to make them see some feature that differentiates given product from its similar competitor-products. That feature should add some difference that would be both noticeable and meaningful, meaning that it is not enough to make some minor change in the product in order to attract consumers.
The change should be meaningful. For instance, it is not enough to start producing goods of different color, though it is important to understand what color attracts the given target market segment of population the most.
Even more importantly, it is crucial to understand that every change should address needs, desires, and self-perceptions of the given target market segment of population.
Yet another important thing to understand about change – as it is related the principles of just noticeable difference and just meaningful difference -, is that the change often comes from bigger trends that might, at first sight, seem unrelated to that particular industry.
One example of that is 3D technology. In recent years it has gained a lot of popularity among consumers. At first it has affected only the movie theaters’ and personal electronics’ markets. But as the time went on, the gaming console giant, Nintendo, understood the bigger trend and decided to apply 3D technology to their gaming consoles.
Video games partaking of that technology followed shortly thereafter. The most important fact here, however, is that Nintendo saw its gamers’ wants as the extension of bigger market.
It is also important to mention that this case demonstrated the principles of just noticeable difference and just meaningful difference: to make gaming more enjoyable, Nintendo has made it possible for the gamers to see 3D images without having to wear the special 3D glasses, which are often regarded as the major drawback of 3D technology.2
Nintendo has also tried to differentiate their product from other gaming consoles by making it easier to use, letting parents control their children’s’ game-buying behavior, and giving gamers the possibility of playing with each other, provided they both have Nintendo 3D.3
The application of above-mentioned principles of JND and JMD attracted the necessary attention to Nintendo 3D. According to the report about the Nintendo 3D managed to sell 400,000 units in the USA.4
All this is just during the first week. It is also important to mention, however, that Nintendo was the first company to present a gaming console that uses 3D technology without requiring its users to wear 3D glasses. It has clearly helped to boost its sales.
It goes without saying that there are still many other things that can be improved – thus, even more consumers can be attracted. For instance, one of the most valuable just meaningful differences for this target market segment would be lower prices.5 Thus, it would be beneficial for Nintendo to work out a way to decrease the costs of producing 3D gaming consoles.
Therefore, Nintendo 3D is the latest piece of evidence that the principles of JND and JMD still work, though they have been introduced long ago. Nintendo combined those principles with the latest marketing research – thus, by capitalizing on the bigger market trend of 3D technology, it has become the first company, and therefore the leader, in the portable 3D gaming console market.
This case illustrates the importance of changing given product according to the bigger technological trends.
In order to understand the behavior of a person purchasing Nintendo 3D or any other gaming console, it is important to understand his motivation, which is the process that causes people to behave as they do.
But in order to better understand the underlying principles of motivation, it would be beneficial to first understand the process of purchase-making. Thus, it is apparent that a purchase is made only when there is a need for it, and only when a consumer wishes to satisfy it.
The desire to eliminate the need is exactly a desire to buy it. Thus, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been highly significant to the development of marketing and can be used to describe the consumer’s motivational behavior.
According to this theory, the basic physiological needs, such as eating, drinking, procreation, and socialization, have to be satisfied before other, less animal-like, needs.
Thus, the need for self-actualization stands at the very top of this hierarchy, requiring a whole host of prerequisite needs to be fulfilled. It seems then that the consumer behavior of purchasing a Nintendo 3D can be explained by the need for self-actualization.
Why people need a Nintendo 3D? It gives some form of entertainment and at the same time escape from the real world. It is also important to mention that for most people video games are not only fun but also some form of reward-motivated behavior, as most modern video games feature complicated missions where you can obtain some form of “higher status” by fulfilling a given mission.
The purchase of Nintendo 3D can also be viewed as the desire to fulfill a psychological need. Psychological needs are the needs that protect and enhance the personality if satisfied.6
Nintendo 3D is the product of high-tech market, which is characterized by constant and swift change. That change seems to cater to ever-changing tastes of the public. Therefore, most of the people in that target market segment are responsive to anything new.
The fact of Nintendo 3D being the first portable 3D gaming console has clearly been something new and thus represented an appeal to the target segment’s most characteristic quality: hunger for anything new. Those people also try to be fashionable.
And if a person sees himself as a fashionable man or woman, he or she will most likely imitate his neighbor or friend who has bought the latest gaming gadget. Therefore, the purchase of Nintendo 3D represents a consumer’s behavior motivated by higher needs that must have been aroused after the satisfaction of lower ones.
Now that we know the motivational foundations of people’s need for Nintendo 3D, we can consider the question of product differentiation. In comparison with other gaming consoles, Nintendo 3D has a lot of advantages, like the possibility to access the web, camera, etc.
The opportunity to show three-dimensional images is present. Notably, there is no need for special glasses. Moreover, Nintendo “is working with studios to bring streaming, 3D movies to its gaming console,” and “to make it easier to play high-end games such as Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare,” will pack “the 3DS with a more powerful processor and a higher-definition display than its predecessor.”7
Therefore, Nintendo 3D does have a lot of advantages that can motivate a consumer to buy.
Consumer personality is another factor that would affect the behavior of given target market, which is why it would be necessary to understand the consumer personality of given market segment. By learning the personality of the consumer, the company can make its product more attractive to the consumer.
More specifically speaking, the producer can persuade the consumer to buy the product as the result of knowing his personality traits and thus being able to approach him taking those personality traits as frame of reference.
One marketing approach that takes advantage of such technique is the Five-Factor Model (FFM), which is the most famous multiple-trait approach in consumer research. “Extroversion”, “agreeableness”, “openness to experience”, “stability”, and “conscientiousness”8 are the main FFM traits.
FFM is proven to be compatible, applicable, and universal.9 Thus, it can be concluded that the FFM model allows the marketing specialist to determine the prevailing personality of given target market segment and develop a marketing campaign based on that personality, so that the target market segment would be drawn to that product.
However, FFM model is applicable not only to the consumer personality area, but also to branding. Nintendo is a famous brand in the gaming world, which has applied the FFM model to its marketing campaigns and has achieved considerable successes in the sales of its products.
That success has been measured in many millions and has brought Nintendo not only profits but also consumers’ trust. This relationship is especially important in its effect on the target market, because that bond of trust influences people’s perception of certain brand.
Even though it has been mentioned earlier in this paper that motivational research can be helpful, it is important to point out its limitations. The most important of its limitations are the use of few respondents and the requirement of expert analysis.10 Thus, it would be beneficial to consider other kind of marketing research: psychographic personality segmentation.
That type of research “attempts to segment consumers according to three categories of variables: activities, interests, and opinions (AIO) (plus demographics)”.11
When this type of research is being conducted, “the respondents are given lists of statements about the opinions they have, the things that they are interested in and the things that they do and asked how much they agree or disagree with each one”.12
Thus, this type of research can be applied to Nintendo 3D by determining the average age, income, and other statistics of the majority of Nintendo 3D buyers, so that the future marketing campaigns can concentrate on those groups and thus establish a more well-defined target segment.
Bibliography
Alpeyev, P &Eki, Y, ‘Nintendo goes for the hard core with its 3DS’, Businessweek, 2010. Web.
Buckleitner, W, ‘A closer look at the Nintendo 3Ds’, The New York Times, 2011.
McNeal, JU, An introduction to consumer behavior, John Wiley B& Sons, Inc., New York, 1973.
Popkins, N, ‘The five-factor model: emergence of a taxonomic model for personality psychology’, Personality Research, 2001. Web.
Sherr, I & Becker, N ‘New Nintendo, Sony gadgets buck slump in videogames’, The Wall Street Journal, 2011.
Wright, R, Consumer behaviour, Thomson Learning, London, 2006.
Yeshin, T, Sales Promotion, Cengage Learning EMEA, London, 2006.
Footnotes
- T Yeshin, Sales Promotion, Cengage Learning EMEA, London, 2006, p. 62.
- W Buckleitner, ‘A closer look at the Nintendo 3Ds’, The New York Times, 2011.
- Buckleitner, n.p.
- I Sherr & N Becker, ‘New Nintendo, Sony gadgets buck slump in videogames’, The Wall Street Journal, 2011, n. p.
- Sherr & Becker, n. p.
- JU McNeal, An introduction to consumer behavior, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1973, p. 39.
- P Alpeyev & Y Eki, ‘Nintendo goes for the hard core with its 3DS’, Businessweek, 2010.
- N Popkins, ‘The five-factor model: emergence of a taxonomic model for personality psychology’, Personality Research, 2001.
- Popkins, n. p.
- R Wright, Consumer behaviour, Thomson Learning, London, 2006, p. 395.
- Wright, p. 397.
- Wright, p. 399.