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and marketing and launched the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo DS, DSi
and the new Nintendo XL (hand held console market) with great success.

Nintendo is now officially the market leader. This is a clever strategy and
the company also uses an undifferentiated segmentation strategy (broad
segments of the market) to appeal to the young and old alike, males and

females, rather than focusing on the dominant male market for the Xbox
and Play Station (focused strategy). This is an extremely clever strategy

and as such has increased sales and profit substantially.

12.3 Technology and the role of the Internet

The role of the Internet ‘makes good business sense’ (Doole and Lowe,

2008), and although the Internet is continuously developing and being up-
dated, it is not as costly to have an Internet presence as opposed to

investing in process or operational technology. Therefore, many
organisations now have a website presence to build relationships with

customers and allow consumers to make purchases on-line. As mentioned
previously, some organisations rely solely on the Internet for its business
and have acquired efficiencies and economies of scale through

experience of being an on-line manufacture or distributor such as Amazon
or social networking sites such as Facebook. Social networking sites such

as Facebook provide a service to its users through technology and have
inspired a whole generation to communicate through a completely different
medium (Doole and Lowe, 2008). The following case shows how social

networking sites can ‘make or break product marketing’

12.3.1 Discussion on social networking sites

This is the dilemma for international marketers. A whole generation are
making consumption decisions based on word of mouth through

technology and social networking sites. Marketers are keen to interact with
this segment of the market without alienating the product, brand and
message. It certainly is a challenge for B2C marketers to capture the

attention of an on-line audience. It is necessary to point out that technology
can facilitate cost-effective relationship building but it does not

automatically achieve a customer-focused approach. This can be