Sega in £50m Euro blitz for Dreamcast

Sega Europe has launched its &£50m pan-European advertising campaign for the Dreamcast games console in cinemas, around the blockbuster Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace.

The campaign, through agency WCRS, runs for the next eight weeks in cinemas and will then be shown on TV.

The push is being overseen by Giles Thomas, who has been promoted to European marketing director, after joining Sega as UK marketing director from MTV last November.

Alison Turner, former head of marketing with games publisher Ubisoft UK, replaces Thomas as head of UK marketing. Sega has also appointed four marketing managers to handle Dreamcast across Europe.

Both executions in the ad campaign were shot in Marseilles, France, and show people in competitive situations as if they were playing each other on the games console. The aim is to highlight the fact that Dreamcast has Internet access and will allow gamers to challenge each other online.

One ad, called “Shave”, takes place in the barbershop of a Foreign Legion fort, where three barbers race to shave the heads of new recruits.

The other, “Buoy”, features children throwing stones at a buoy floating in the bay. The one who hits it uses a catapult, in a “special manoeuvre”.

Sega Europe chief executive Jean-Francois Cecillon says: “Dreamcast is an evolutionary product, which not only offers more power, but also includes an online capability.”

The &£199 console will launch across Europe on September 23. Sega hopes to challenge Sony PlayStation’s market-leading position.

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