‘Many gamers are skeptical about brands’
Once a year now or so, the irregular Mercedes-Benz and Nintendo partnership rears up, only to be quickly forgotten in a few weeks. Last year it was free Mario Kart 8 DLC, and recently, an 8-bit car costume for Super Mario Maker.
Speaking on the deal, Mercedes head of product placement Caroline Pilz noted, “Many people grew up with Mario during the last 30 years, so there are quite a lot of 30- and 40-somethings around for which Super Mario Maker hails back to their childhood days and gives them a large dose of nostalgia. While we received a lot of positive feedback on the campaign and the integration of our cars into Mario Kart 8, we also learned that many gamers are skeptical about brands appearing in their games. So we made sure to put a lot of effort and passion into designing the actual level.”
I’d be interested in seeing if they have any numbers to justify this campaign — customer acquisition rates and such — as I don’t see a lot of people spending tens of thousands after playing a fake car in a low-res video game. I can’t knock the people who made the Mario Maker level though, as it’s actually far more fun than I thought it would be!
