PHILADELPHIA — As part of an exclusive partnership with Nintendo, local mom Patricia Barnes sent a text message advertising the new Super Mario Bros. movie to her son, Jake Barnes.
“Our Mom-Text ad campaign has been incredibly successful,” said Paula Graham, Nintendo spokesperson, in a statement released to the press. “Standard commercials and web ads are proving less and less effective. But with Mom-Texts, even if the user just picks up their phone for a second, scoffs, and goes back to playing Fortnite, that’s still more engagement than any regular ad. With that in mind, we targeted moms across the globe in hopes that they would text their kids about the Mario movie.”
Mrs. Barnes was more than happy to speak about being part of a targeted ad campaign for her son.
“I found out about the movie while I was scrolling through Facebook,” said Mrs. Barnes. “I saw a video of this cute little mushroom guy. While I was commenting on how he reminded me of my Jakey, I saw it was an ad for a Mario movie. I clicked on it, and it said, ‘Tell your kids! They definitely don’t know about this.’ The first thing I did was send it to Jake. I’m glad I could be the one to tell him.”
Jake Barnes spoke out on being one of the first to experience Mom-Texts.
“I’m not exactly sure why she texted me. I live right downstairs,” said Barnes from his apartment in the basement. “The text said, ‘Did you see there’s a Mario Movie coming out? Looks fun. Love you!’ with a Facebook Watch link. Turned out to be that teaser from 6 months ago with the penguins. It’s been so long, I actually thought it was new footage for a second.”
After the success of the Nintendo campaign, Barnes will reportedly partner with Microsoft to text her nieces and nephews about the Minecraft movie.
