Nintendo in a Word: ‘Fun’ and ‘Games’

If there’s one word Nintendo owns, it’s fun. If there’s a phrase it owned, it would be fun and games. When asked what one word comes to mind when thinking about Nintendo, 291 chose fun – almost twice the highest frequency of any other company (157 for innovative for Apple). The second-most mentioned word for Nintendo was games, suggested by 86 respondents.

In a national survey by Researchscape, conducted September 8 to 30, 2012, with 1,030 U.S. adults, 64% of respondents described the company using a positive term, with only 14% selecting a negative term. (The remaining 22% used a neutral term.) Surprisingly, Nintendo’s appeal didn’t vary by age or gender – both young and old viewed the company about equally positively, as did males and females.

While consumers often describe many other established companies with negative words about their age (antiquated, archaic, obsolete), consumers had a more positive view of Nintendo’s legacy: 28 called it classic, 26 nostalgic, 14 retro and 6 old-school. The positive view outdid the negative view on age 2 to 1: 26 called it old, 5 outdated, 4 ancient and 3 old-fashioned.

Other negative terms used by respondents: 18 called it childish, 6 boring and 4 behind and 4 waste. Neutral terms described the products or characters – 86 used the word games, 24 Mario, 13 Wii, and 2 each for Gameboy and videogames – or described the audience – 21 responded kids, 15 childhood, 14 family, 4 children and 4 gamers.

Other positive terms used to describe the brand: 29 called it entertaining, 21 awesome, 17 creative, 16 innovative and 8 original.

ACSI LLC does not publicly track customer satisfaction with Nintendo.

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