Why Brands Need To Leverage Esports & How To Reach The Targeted Consumer
A “Target Audience” is a “group of potential buyers of the company’s [brand’s] products, current users, deciders, or influencer’s, and individuals, groups, particular public's, or the general public. The target audience is a critical influence on the communicator’s [brand marketing directors] decisions about what to say, how, when, where, and to whom.
The most sought after customer segment today in the United States for most companies [not all] is the millennial generation. This is the generation that is making the large financial decisions today such as getting married, buying a home, earning a higher salary, and becoming mid-level managers. Coincidentally the millennial generation is the largest majority of the current Esports market. According to NewZoo, out of the millions of labeled “Esports Enthusiasts” a large percentage of them are the millennial generation or younger.
The millennial generation is also the generation that has EMBRACED technology, specifically gaming. This generation was the first generation to have access to video games in multiple forms in their childhood. The generations that follow the millennials have embraced technology even more so, but are not at the point in their life to have the financial purchasing ability that is sought after by most brands.
Just as Facebook allows a brand to conduct “targeted ads” based off of “location” and “demographics” Esports as a medium enables this concept more so than television, radio, magazines, or random 3rd party advertisements. The challenge is that Esports has no social platform that categorizes and organizes individuals and that Esports covers a vast spectrum of gaming.
The key takeaways for brands and marketing in Esports is that individual gamers provide a large amount of information through both their digital footprint (such as IP address) and their profile (demographic information). Game communities currently provide a rough means for brands to reach a high level of their target customer demographic by being a key node in the network of gamers, game community leaders even more so. In Esports Alliance Article #005 we talked about the key node that game communities present to brands.
Until there is a social platform that fits the needs of gamers and incorporates the aspects of communication and community/network that they seek, brands will have to take a multi-pronged approach to reach their targeted consumer. This approach will need to incorporate the following concepts:
- Integration of Communication Channels: Esports provides multiple means of communicating with gamers ranging from forums in game communities, to 3rd party advertisements such as those discussed in A.A.R. #001, to hosting Esports tournaments, to advertisements on commercial breaks via mobile streaming platforms such as Twitch.
- Personal Communications Channels: Esports enables individuals, particularly on Youtube, to have a large amount of personal influence. Because Esports is a virtual undertaking and is therefore mimicked through a little training, there is a lot of imitation in game play much more so than in physical activities such as football and baseball. Influencers on social media platforms, professional Esports teams, and game developers have a lot of personal influence with the Esports community.
- Measuring Return on Investment: Advertising “in the game” does not (currently) enable a gamer to “click-through” and purchase an item they see or an advertisement for a service. However, through software analytics and downloadable software in video games it is possible to track gamer activity outside of the game with the program running. Additionally other means of calculating R.O.I. such as promo codes in advertisements can enable accurate calculations of effectiveness.
Current methods by brands to market in Esports such as Redbull are similar to those proposed by Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson.
Currently the methods available for brands to get “into” Esports come in a variety of ways:
- Sponsor a team…..a tried and true practice for almost all sports, especially Esports
- Sponsor a tournament…again something that has been done before with varying levels of success
- Host an event around Esports….such as a brand funded E3
- Pay an advertising company for media spots such as video commercials in games and ad-spots on websites
- Co-branding with another company such as Nintendo and Yogurtland.
Where future methods of brands getting into Esports will likely go beyond these current methods?
Game/Map Development- Building entire worlds, such as an amusement park for a virtual reality avatar to attend and co-mingling an offer to attend that same amusement park in the flesh. Mixing virtual and real currency is a sub-component of this idea as well. Points earned by the avatar can be used in real-life.
Game Hosting- Owning the server and the platform that gamers play on allows a brand to decide how/when/which advertisements are run. By offering gaming experiences for targeted consumer segments, brands can market their products at a much lower rate.
More articles to follow on Esports Alliance about Game/Map Development and the background of game hosting.
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