U.S. advertising and design firm 72andSunny has launched the first international campaign for Gibraltar licensed and Indonesian owned Mansion gambling group.
The campaign uses six spots for television and web as well as a print campaign, all introducing the new brand idea: “Welcome to The Game.” The concept behind the brand is to showcase poker’s proud roots as a game of wits and human competition.
Using the free-play online gaming site Mansion Poker.net to sidestep US legal complications, the brand is presented around the proposition that poker is a competitive and sophisticated game.
A second round of ads will specifically promote the Mansion Poker.net Poker Dome Challenge which the group is backing.
The Challenge is part of Mansion Poker.net’s strategy to further popularise the game (see previous bulletins) and consists of a heavily publicised, 43-week live-to-tape tournament series on Fox Sports Net (FSN); it has the world’s best amateur poker players vying for a $2.2 million series purse in the fastest and most technologically advanced poker series on television. The show airs on FSN through March 2007 on Sundays.
72andSunny’s campaign consists of six TV spots directed by Antony Hoffman of @Radical Media, which were shot over four days in Prague in a luxury casino and in poker rooms created largely from scratch. The look and feel of the campaign evokes the sophistication of Monte Carlo or classic Vegas. Each ad plays like a mini film and focuses on a different insight into the game, and features professional Mansion-sponsored poker player Erica Schoenberg, with narrations from well-known actor Dougray Scott, who serves as “the guide.”
The campaign premieres first in the United States on FSN, and will receive worldwide market exposure across Canada, the U.K., Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, as well as the Asia Pacific region via international distribution rights.