±±¾©Èü³µpk10

In the race to tie up the lucrative Christmas computer games

market, Infogrames, Europe's largest games publisher, has embarked on a

pan-European marketing drive to shift copies of its new Monopoly game

for PCs.

The board game brand Monopoly will be relaunched in a PC format that

asks players to keep people happy in a virtual city while trying to

bankrupt opponents.

The print, ambient and direct marketing campaign will include demo CDs

and has been created by Mercier Gray. It goes live in Europe next week,

having launched in the US last month.

Mercier Gray's ads show screen shots of the game but consist mainly of

illustrations offering advice on how to please the virtual population of

Monopoly Tycoon's city, such as building a supermarket or ice-cream

parlour. The ads use the endline: "Bankrupt your opponents before they

bankrupt you."

Unusually for a computer title, the ads are aimed at a mass-market

audience rather than hardcore game players. "We want people to try it

and see that it's not as difficult as they think," Matthew Woodley,

Infogrames UK's marketing director, commented.

The direct mail campaign drops at the end of November to more than

100,000 people, including 47,000 members of the Electronics Boutique's

loyalty programme. Electronics Boutique is the UK's largest games

retailer.

The ads were written by Gareth Fitzpatrick and art directed by Aaron

McGurk. Media is handled by Carat.

Global revenues from computer game sales are overtaking cinema industry

sales, but the sector has yet to match comparable sectors' adspend.