The publishing alliance offers the games industry a new way to communicate with a vast audience of casual gamers and families amongst the Daily Mirror’s 3.17m readers [NRS Jan-June 2010]. A recent survey revealed that games were increasingly popular, with 1.2m Daily Mirror readers stating they had purchased a game [source: TGI July 2009 - June 2010]
The Ticket – powered by GamesMaster will appear in the Daily Mirror as part of the paper’s weekly entertainment guide. First to support the exciting new gaming section is SEGA, with a Sonic The Hedgehog themed edition on Friday 10th December, devoted to one of the world’s best known and most loved videogame characters.
The eight-page section includes an in-depth look at the new Nintendo DS and Wii game Sonic Colours, and sees the Daily Mirror & GamesMaster teams go head-to-head on three Sonic titles. Readers also get the chance to win an Xbox 360 console with Kinect, or be one of 50 people to win a copy of Kinect title Sonic Free Riders.
The strategic partnership with Mirror Group continues Future’s reinvigoration of the GamesMaster brand and project to widen the reach of its games editorial beyond the company’s own portfolio, marrying its leading content with the Daily Mirror’s mass-market media reach.
Lee Nutter, Publisher of GamesMaster, said: “Our new long-term partnership with Mirror Group gives the games industry a new way to target a vast audience of casual gamers and families through mass-market media. We’re excited to be building the reach of Future’s games media amongst a massive new audience and raising awareness of the relaunched GamesMaster brand. We reach more UK gamers across print, online, on-console and live events than any of our competitors.”
Mark Field, Head of Business Development at Mirror Group Advertising, added: “Working in partnership with Future and the games industry has been a great way of marrying excellent content and broadening the opportunity to talk to a very large game buying audience. In the lead up to Christmas we have developed a platform to talk to families about upcoming launches and current releases and importantly drive new business opportunities for our commercial partners. This is just the start of a new way of working with Future to develop a brand partnership which works well for everyone involved.”
