Southwest - Southwest And Super-Mario

Southwest - Southwest And Super-Mario

In January, Southwest Airlines went ‘oldschool’ digital with a campaign involving Nintendo’s Super Mario.

In this campaign , Southwest worked with Nintendo to create a custom level for Super Mario Maker, a new Wii U game that lets players re-live the early days of console gaming and create their own levels.

The Southwest level is designed to be easy and accessible, serving as an opportunity to collect lots of coins and a bonus life. While the Airline branding is minimal, the Southwest level does include nods to the airline, with a plane for Mario to zoom around in, blocks that (slightly) resemble a 737 and a few hearts made of coins.

The best thing about it – from a gamer’s perspective – is that the Southwest level contains a hidden magical mushroom not found anywhere else in the game. If discovered, this mushroom unlocks a classic “SkyPop” costume (ca. 1989) that Mario can wear. Talk about geeky gold!

Needless to say the initiative has been extensively covered in the gaming media, via gamer/tech publications like Gamespot. com and Digitaltrends.com .

Nintendo and Southwest began their marketing partnership in 2013, when the famed gaming company became the official video game partner of Southwest. The partnership kicked off in grand style , just before the holidays, when each lucky passenger on flight 1883 from New Orleans was given a free Wii U game console by none other than Super Mario himself.