Posted on by Nathalie Tay
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Game On for Sports Marketing
17 Mar
Adrian Gaffor is a leader in esports and digital marketing, serving as the Group CEO of Esports Business Network (EBN) and CEO of The Gaming Company.
At the forefront of esports and gaming technology, he has propelled the company to become a leading esports marketing group in Asia, collaborating with over 60 brands, including Mountain Dew, Red Bull, Valve, Riot Games and Tencent Games. Adrian’s approach has expanded EBN’s reach across 19 markets, recently extending into the Middle East and Africa.
You can meet and listen to him this Thursday, March 20, at AdVolution#2…
Streaming platforms are changing how fans consume sports…
Streaming is just the beginning. The next big shift in digital fan engagement will revolve around the fan experience across live content. Now that content is consumed on platforms/applications and on devices, it opens up the gateway to live, interactive and immersive fan experiences.
The next phase will include sports teams and tournaments enabling direct fan interaction via community activities; be it voting, wagering, digital fan meet ups, live-contests and even delving down to VR and AR experiences.
Brands can directly communicate and generate live consumer data that is trackable and can lead to data-driven conversion metrics; from clicking on a billboard in a stadium to leveraging new touch-points to deliver point of sale, to redefining loyalty programs and engagements…
Esports is now mainstream, but where’s the real monetisation opportunity for brands?
Although mainstream, esports monetisation as an industry is very much still in its infancy, but this brings along different avenues for brands to leverage the “esports opportunity”. The real question is how can a brand build a sustainable community?
Instead of entering into the esports via sponsoring an event, or working on campaign-based activations, think of having a house for your community to live, build that up via interest points and brand values and then activate the campaigns and sponsorships to reward your community.
Imagine trying to sell your SIM card to a consumer for RM5.99 saying that it has unlimited data and calls for 30 days vs telling your consumer that for only RM5.99 you get that plus access to exclusive esports events, experiences and rewards…
How do brands create meaningful partnerships with athletes and gamers?
The traditional ways still work, from endorsements to sponsorships but this only applies to the top 1% of advertisers.
Brands should be focusing on the greater mass, at least in the gamers category. They now have options on how they want to create those meaningful partnerships; they can choose to create and support communities via their own programs, choose to own an esports team and do it via a content driven “the voice” kind of way, and much more.
Share an esports campaign you like…
I’d say it would be Goodday’s Senior Esports Team Initiative. Goodday set out to create a program to educate seniors in Malaysia about esports and how to game, hold a recruitment drive and qualifiers to recruit interested senior candidates and ultimately place them in a competition to experience what esports actually is.
Since the campaign ended, we see this newly crowned senior esports teams competing against other senior esports teams around the world, from Singapore to Sweden! That is how a brand builds evergreen content and true value.
Privacy laws are tightening, does this affect esports marketing?
In my opinion, privacy laws should not affect how we build fan campaigns and experiences. Because if campaigns build around a value system that connects with fans, they will automatically opt-in to be part of the experience and/or campaign.
But brands need to ask themselves what sports/esports titles they want to target, hone down and understand the community and what they desire, build experiences based on those desires, and seek official endorsements/approvals from the IP owners.
What are the major trends in this space?
The introduction of live data-tracking tools enabling real-time tracking and campaign optimisation, and seeing the future where brands transition to content and IP ownership.
Despite his busy travel schedule, Adrian agreed to chat with us on Thursday at AdVolution #2.
