Eidos Interactive · 1996 · Tomb Raider
"A hero for a new age"
Eidos promoted Tomb Raider not through traditional game advertising but through Lara Croft as a celebrity figure — appearing in music videos, fashion shoots, and mainstream magazines to reach audiences who had never bought a game.
Eidos's marketing strategy for Tomb Raider (1996) was unprecedented in the industry: they treated Lara Croft as a celebrity rather than a game character, featuring her on the screens of U2's PopMart tour, placing her on the covers of The Face and other style magazines, and arranging interviews in which actors "played" Lara for press appearances. Models — first Rhona Mitra in 1997, later Nell McAndrew — were hired as the official 'real-life' Lara Croft for promotional appearances. The game was positioned as a mainstream entertainment product rather than a gaming niche release, and it succeeded — Tomb Raider sold over 7 million copies across PlayStation and Sega Saturn, establishing Core Design and Eidos as major industry forces. The campaign was the first example in gaming of character-as-lifestyle-brand marketing at scale.