Check out EA Sports plans for their marketing campaign for FIFA 2003 in Europe...
BE THE 12th MAN WITH FIFA FOOTBALL 2003 FROM EA SPORTS
CHERTSEY, UK, 25th October 2002 – With the release of FIFA Football 2003 from EA SPORTSTM - the world's leading interactive entertainment software company talk about the largest marketing campaign behind this year's game. Players sometimes talk about mystical influences on the game, influences that are out of their hands: a referee who allows the game to go with them, or makes it go against them, a crowd that leads them to an unforgettable comeback or even the presence in the crowd of a player who has been injured for six months. When players talk about that influence, they do so in hushed tones. They whisper of the presence of the 12th man. FIFA Football 2003 invites you to be the 12th man.
Al King, Director of Consumer Marketing, Europe, Electronic Arts Ltd said: "The game is targeted at 16-34 year old gamers who own or play on the required hardware; the focus this year is on the hard core gamers as well as the more mainstream segments."
Star players Edgar Davids, Ryan Giggs and Roberto Carlos have made time in their busy schedules to form a "Football Council" leading the largest FIFA marketing campaign seen in Europe by staring in individual TV and print advertising investigating the 12th man phenomenon.
The campaign consists of TV, print, outdoor, an internet micro-site, perimeter boards in football stadiums, etc. and will run across Europe. Kick-off will be on the 25th of October with the print campaign and the micro site www.fifa2003.ea.com, which comes in 7 languages. 3 TV spots will start to air on the 31st of October. The 3 spots each have 30sec and 20sec versions.
UK Campaign Highlights include:
Large scale UK TV Campaign
Pre-awareness, launch and post-launch - specialist, national & lifestyle print advertising
Nationwide billboard campaign
Huge in store FIFA presence at retail
Week long demo disc offer with The Sun
ITV Sport FIFA microsite
FIFA tournaments at Burton stores
Hoardings at key UEFA Cup and England Euro qualifier games
FIFA Football 2003 is released on October 25th 2002 for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system and for PC-CD, the PlayStation®, the XboxTM video game system from Microsoft Corporation, NINTENDO GAMECUBETM on November 1st 2002 and GameBoy AdvanceTM on 15th November 2002.
