The Background Nintendo of America came to Martini Design to conceptualize and develop their US portal site for Kirby, one of the most widely recognized video game characters in the world. This site would be key to promoting Nintendo's premier of Kirby's own cartoon on US TV, and to market penetration for new Kirby games such as "Kirby GBA: Nightmare in Dreamland", releasing in December 2002. The Project A site that required all-Flash child-friendly 'craziness' on the front-end coupled with a bullet-proof database on the back end along with a client Admin interface, this project demanded innovative, top of the line design, production and development. Fully-interactive with multiple online games, downloads, email cards and other goodies, the website includes many client-updateable sections. Key to hooking users and ensuring their frequent return is user sign-in to 'purchase' cool Kirby-related online collectibles, updated weekly. The Reward Since launch, traffic to kirbykirbykirby.com has exceeded traffic to Nintendo's other game-related websites. Gail Tilden (Nintendo VP of Marketing and a 15-year Nintendo veteran) wrote in a congratulatory email, "Kirby kirby kirby is a marketing masterpiece. Martini embraced the brand and interpreted it in a way that has made the website the cornerstone of the entire franchise effort." The Japanese market has also been enthralled with the US Kirby portal, and Nintendo Japan placed a link to the US site from their own portal to attract more users. ©2002, Martini Design, LLC.