Like many young students, Helen was learning how to write letters for a class project, and she and her fellow students were given the task of writing to a company. Helen chose to write to one of her favorite companies, Nintendo.  She explained that she was a big fan, and wrote that she had begged her parents to buy a Nintendo DS for her, which they refused to do. Check out this link to see her letter (warning, this is a video game website, so if you’re at work they may block you).

Now, most companies would throw a letter like this in the trash, or disregard it completely. But Nintendo (evil marketers that they are) had other ideas. After calling the school and talking with the principal to verify the letter, they decided to send Helen and her class a DS (and in classic Nintendo fashion, one game). Wow, way to go Nintendo. I’m sure Helen will remember this for the rest of her life, and will probably continue to purchase Nintendo products for years to come. When someone tries to talk smack about her favorite company, she’ll have something positive to say in response. And so for the cost of Nintendo DS (probably around $80 bucks or so) Nintendo has created a lifelong customer and brand advocate.

Let me add one more thing in here. Giving away a product is not the answer. Well, okay, I’m sure it helped alot. But I think that the fact that Nintendo responded to this individual request (and by the way did not seek out any kind of attention for this act) is what’s really important. Today, we have all these high tech solutions and ways to reach potential customers, but in the end sometimes it’s that human interaction that creates the biggest impact. Don’t forget it.