Mario and Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games may be a few months from launch, but publisher Sega has already begun its ‘biggest ever’ marketing campaign for the title.

The firm has booked 30-second spots before some of this summer’s biggest movie releases, beginning with Harry Potter, and continuing with Imagine That, G-Force, Land of the Lost, Aliens in the Attic, Short and Up. The cinema promotion is expected to reach 7.5 million viewers.

“Mario and Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games is a great family title and we wanted to cherry pick our communication channels in order to enable us to reach our core demographic of kids and parents. Using some hugely anticipated film releases to promote the game this summer is a great way to bring awareness for its release,” said Sega UK’s marketing manager Jo Fawell.

“Not only that – it’s a sustained communication that will continue through to launch giving great opportunities to speak to a captive audience. Various other elements of the overall marketing campaign will begin to phase in over the next coming months ensuring a great buzz at launch and beyond.”

She added: “The cinema campaign for Mario and Sonic is just the beginning of Sega’s biggest product marketing campaign to date.

“We will be investing in many media channels over the course of the campaign and cinema is a key focus to reach our core family demographic.”