Hasbro sponsors ITV’s latest celebrity venture

Hasbro is gearing up for Christmas with a £2m marketing programme and is to sponsor a prime-time TV show for the first time.

Hasbro is gearing up for Christmas with a &£2m marketing programme and is to sponsor a prime-time TV show for the first time.

Hasbro’s MB Games brand will sponsor Celebrities Under Pressure, which will be broadcast weekly on ITV1, at 6pm. The show runs for six weeks from Saturday September 13. The sponsorship was negotiated by Hasbro’s media agency, OMD UK.

The sponsorship idents, created by BMP DDB, will feature a number of MB’s games, including Buckaroo, Connect 4, Operation, Ker-Plunk, Mousetrap, Guess Who? and Twister. BMP DDB brand director Helen McDermott says Celebrities Under Pressure will have the same target audience – housewives and children – as Hasbro, and the idents will aim to capture the “memorable moments” consumers have had playing the games.

The series will be hosted by Melanie Sykes, and will see celebrities living with a family and conducting a series of tasks to win prizes for the family. Celebrities featured include Pete Waterman, Phil Tufnell, Jono Coleman, Tony Hadley, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Brian Dowling, Sam Fox and Fiona Phillips.

The TV sponsorship is the first of a series of games marketing initiatives that Hasbro plans in the UK.