Tesco pushes 'home of gaming' positioning after Game collapse

By Matthew Chapman, marketingmagazine.co.uk, Friday, 30 March 2012 01:20PM

Tesco is running a press ad campaign positioning itself as "the home of gaming" in the same week that troubled gaming retailer Game announced it is to close almost half its stores.

Tesco: claims to have the largest number of gaming stores in the UK

The Tesco ad claims the supermarket has the largest number of gaming stores in the UK and points out it also has more than 10,000 games available online. Tesco also offers a trade-in service, which lets consumers trade old games for money off in-store.

Media planning and buying for the campaign was handled by Initiative, with the ad was created by The Red Brick Road.

A Tesco spokesperson said: "This print ad is the latest in a campaign showcasing our non-food products – in this case games. Our games offer is very popular with customers, with over 10,000 games available online and almost 400 stores open at midnight for new game releases."

The campaign comes after Game's administrators announced on Monday (26 March) that it was closing 277 stores this week, resulting in 2,104 redundancies.

Game's fall from grace comes after it failed to fend off growing competition from large supermarkets such as Tesco and internet retailers including Amazon.

The retailer's troubles were accelerated following a dispute with suppliers at the start of the year, after being unable to honour deals. This meant it was not able to stock games including 'Mass Effect 3', one of the year's most anticipated releases.

Follow Matthew Chapman at @mattchapmanUK

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk