Lara Returns To School (2001)

The Croft Times

Lara Croft is to star in a campaign to advertise the royal Gordonstoun school - the place where she "discovered" her love for adventure. The Tomb Raider character was a pupil at Gordonstoun in her fictional background and now the school is set to capitalise on her fame.

Lara's creator, Eidos, has given the school free access to use the image in a marketing campaign to coincide with the UK opening of the film. The adverts will be shown in cinemas before the screening of Tomb Raider.

It is something of a coup for the Scottish school to secure the image free-of-charge, while Lucozade is reported to have paid in excess of £1m to use the character in its advertising campaign. Eidos neither sought consent nor paid a fee for the privilege of saying that Lara attended Gordonstoun for her sixth-form studies and fell in love with its outdoor and activity-led regime.

The school’s marketing arm has been given free access to specially created footage of Lara Croft which will be used in advertisements that will be shown in cinemas before the film begins.

The Scottish school is credited with giving her a love of climbing and shooting — she is said to have displayed "too keen an interest" in the latter — but to date the only sign of the Tomb Raider connection has been a model of Lara on the mantlepiece of Mark Pyper, the headmaster. Gordonstoun has taught three generations of royal children and Princess Anne has been a governor for six years and Prince Charles is phearps the most famous former Gordonstoun pupil. It says that the Lara link has been a boon for its marketing budget. Angela Harkness, director of development, said that no strongarm tactics were used on the game’s inventors to secure what she called "the ad bargain of the century." "It has all been very easy, they wanted to make a gesture and we said thank you very much," she said. "It is quite a coup for us. We never made a fuss when Eidos used the school for Lara — we know they made the right choice — but it would be daft for us not to capitalise on it."

The advert features two real adventure-seeking alumni - Pollyanna Murray and Rebecca Ridgway. Both came from the sporty Windmill House and have undertaken stern endurance tests since leaving school. Ms Murray, 27, became the first Scot to climb Mount Everest while Ms Ridgway, 33, canoed single-handed around Cape Horn in South America.

During the three-minute ad Lara is seen kicking down a door, abseiling down a wall and bursting onto the screen. Her face then is replaced by both the real women climbing and canoeing. At the end the three girls are pictured together, and Lara blows a kiss to the audience as the narration booms 'three amazing girls, one incredible school'.