Cammie Dunaway saw a future for games emerge when she ran Sales and Marketing at Nintendo of America. She recently took a moment with Gamesauce to share where she’s been, her current work at KidZania and where she’s going in large part because of the games industry.
Marketing a Vision
Nintendo sparked Dunaway’s attention in many ways. “I was attracted by the vision of expanding video games outside of the traditional audience. I really responded to [Nintendo’s CEO Satoru Iwata’s] belief that everyone from 5-95 is a potential gamer,” Dunaway shares.
Dunaway’s background involves connecting with customers. She isn’t exclusive to the games industry, having also grown large brands such as Doritos and Cheetos. That valuable experience, not to mention her tenure as CMO of Yahoo!, made her appealing to Nintendo of America. Recently, she left Nintendo and was appointed the US President and Global CMO of KidZania, but she has taken valuable lessons with her.
Lessons at Nintendo
Working at Nintendo was a natural fit for Dunaway, partially because of her interest in branding, but also because of her family’s interest in games. “My son thought it would be really cool to have a Mom who spent all her time thinking about video games,” she admits. “He loved it when I brought work home!”
When Wii Fit launched, Dunaway was inspired. “Who would have imagined that a video game company could become the world’s largest seller of bathroom scales! Wii Fit really taught me that if you make something fun, you can change people’s behavior. It is pretty powerful to use gaming mechanics like achievements and unlocking content to encourage consumers to do something positive like exercise.”
Applying Lessons
The importance of learning and changing behaviors through gameplay stuck with Dunaway. When she took her position at KidZania, she had bountiful experience to draw from and special insight from the games industry.
KidZania’s parks are much like live-action video games. The company builds kid-sized cities where children learn about jobs and economics through role-playing. They can be anything from doctors, to fireman, to veterinarians, to fashion designers, and more in a real world setting. Much like games, achievements are awarded. However, there’s an added value of education when tasked with using awards. “Kids get paid for their work in our currency [KidZos] and make decisions about saving and spending,” Dunaway explains.
The parks are hugely successful in cities like Tokyo, Dubai, Lisbon, and Mexico City. Dunaway’s job is to bring them to the US, as well as to build new global revenue streams through merchandising and the web.
So far, Dunaway’s biggest challenge is seeing how quickly she can get her team built and get a park open in the US. “Inspiring and equipping kids is critical to our future so I want to get KidZania here as fast as I can make it happen!” says Dunaway.
Dunaway is excited about the potential for change and the forward motion in her career. “At Nintendo I saw the potential for education and entertainment to come together and make a difference in the world. At KidZania I get to make it happen in a very powerful way.”
Cammie Dunaway is hard at work building her team for KidZania US.
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