Cyber star gives advertisers a hand

Given the number of hours teenagers spend on PlayStation, it was only a matter of time before one of its star characters crossed over into a major mainstream advertising campaign.

On Monday, Lucozade begins a summer campaign starring Lara Croft, the death-defying, scantily-clad adventurer from the Tomb Raider trilogy of games.

Just as the athlete Daley Thompson in the 1980s helped take the fizzy drink out of the sick room and into the locker room, the brand hopes Croft will encourage its teenage market to keep Lucozade number three in the soft drink market. In Ireland, that market is worth £192 million (€243.8 million). Lucozade is a major advertiser, spending £1.5 million annually across all brands.

The idea to use Lara Croft came from Ogilvy & Mather's Sydney agency and already the ad has been shown in Australia and the Far East. Smith Kline Beecham, manufacturer of Lucozade, decided to pick up the global campaign for its Irish market because it considers that as well as being a modern icon, Lara Croft has crossed over from the world of cyber games to popular culture and is instantly recognisable - even to non-Gameboy users. It's a smart move because Ireland is far and away the strongest PlayStation market in Europe in terms of household penetration. After only four years, one household in four in both the Republic and the North has a PlayStation console and, according to Ms Alison Duffy, PlayStation's marketing manager in Ireland, this island is next to Japan in terms of the popularity of the game.

"There are more Play Stations in Irish homes then there are multimedia PCs," says Ms Duffy. "And while other advertisers in other markets have tried to use a PlayStation character, none has done so on such a grand, global scale as Lucozade." Aside from the overall popularity of PlayStation and the Tomb Raider games, Lucozade also benefits from a quirk in the age profile of Irish PlayStation users.

The typical European "gamer" (the slang term for Playstation players) is 20-21 years old and male. In Ireland, the age profile drops significantly to 16-17, and in the past 12 months there has been an increase in female users.

The logical marketing progression from Lucozade's use of the Lara Croft character is for product placement in the actual games.

As yet, this has not been a feature in any of the most popular games but, according to Ms Duffy, the time when it is can't be far off.

"There are football and motor racing games," she says. "And to create a realistic stadium or race track, it would make sense to show product advertising just as there is in real life." She does feel, however, that the day when a character such as Croft races through a game clutching a branded chocolate bar and drinking a branded soft drink is probably still far off.