lady gamers

I love the new campaign for the Nintendo DS Lite, which is definitely aimed at women and a broader mainstream audience in general. Called "I Play for Me," the campaign stars country singer Carrie Underwood, TV actress America Ferrera, and movie actress Liv Tyler. Obviously, the campaign tries to cover all the pop culture mediums, casting celebrities who have very clean reputations no less.

The ads themselves are actually very quiet, which is how they caught my attention in the first place. Through all the noise and clutter of most ads, these stood out, and of course, from the way the angles of the camera capture their every action, you feel like a voyeur trying to look in to see what they're doing. And once you do see them, it's like this "oh" feeling. Like, "oh, they're playing video games. What are they playing?"

I do play a fair amount of video games, although I don't teeter off too far from my faves, which are less hardcore gamer, and more on the puzzle track (Lumines) or virtuality (Sims 2). I don't play some of the other games 'cause I don't like the stress of shooting at someone (although that's a great stress reliever if that's all you did, and you didn't have to worry about someone attacking you from behind, or if you have to cautious of someone lurking around the corner, but I digress), and most games need a long term-commitment. I like the pick-up games where you play for a short while, then move on. Don't we all have pretty short attention spans these days? Based on the messages of these ads, I guess that this is what they're basically selling.

Anyhow, here are the ads if you haven't seen them already. It's an interesting, unexpected campaign.







And here are the behind-the-scenes action. It's interesting that they talk about "growing up with Nintendo" and how it's quick, simple, relaxing, and fun to play. They are definitely trying to appeal to players who want something easy and non-committal (but committed to Nintendo, of course).







See more of the "I Play for Me" campaign here.