What a fabulous evening working with I Am 8-Bit and Nintendo. The Nintendo DSi launch was held at Universal CityWalk ,in the heart of Los Angeles, last night bringing out Nitty fans and media from all over the city. I worked alongside friends and strangers to make for one of the best promotions I've ever been a part of.
We all arrived at 3pm for training and talking points to present for the DSi. We were also shown what sort of swag we would be giving away to patrons and I was immediately excited. In most promos I've worked, we usually end up passing out key chains, chap stick, buttons, things like that. Well, leave it to Nintendo to never disappoint as they made it very clear to pass out everything we had in our stock room...and it was a lot. We got to pass out:
- DS Headsets
- 2 GB SD cards
- 2000 point DSi shopping cards
- Stylus Variety Pack
- Pins with DSi setting pictures on them (cute)
- Mario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong shaped gummy candy. Yummmmmy.
We had stickers, but were unable to pass them out due to CityWalk rules.
For people who pre-ordered, they got a sweet Mario I am 8-Bit T-shirt and poster that they could have their faces drawn into by the artists that were attending.
People were extremely excited to see us and learn about what new features the DSi would bring us. After talking to us, many people came back to show us that they had pre-ordered and to say "thank you." Several media outlets turned out such as G4, GameTrailers and IGN snagging interviews from people waiting to buy or to grab shots of us teaching consumers about the product.
Of course we got the free loaders that want to take what you have even with out knowing what it is, "Can I have the free stuff that's in your bag?," "Well, my son has a twin so can I get five more?" (that's not a joke) "I don't own a DS but I'll just
Ebay it." Seriously people, have some damn class! Grrg! Only downside to promos are the people like that. Makes me a sad panda.
Moving on, the first guy in line showed up at noon that day to be in line and by the time midnight had rolled around, the line was wrapped around designated locations around the CityWalk.
At the end of the night, after all our hard work, the coordinators decided to surprise us by letting us KEEP out DSi's! It was SO amazing. Like I said, nothing but good times with friends, talking about what I love the most, games. I hope they hire me again, I'd do it in a heartbeat!
