Coca-Cola eSports Is On A Tear

TNL eSports Brand Tracker 044: Coca-Cola

TNL eSports Brand Tracker 044: Coca-Cola (Photo: Battlefy)

The Next Level 092

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TNL Take: As 2016 starts to wind down thank you — Prince. Bowie. Brexit… — I was going to add Coca-Cola to my “Where Are These Brands?” List.

Just like life and timing, after I spoke at at Pepsi’s eSports and Gaming Summit — the company goes on a tear.

Over the past two months, Coca-Cola has now activated across 4 different eSports/Gaming programs:

Coca-Cola and ESWC in Paris Games Week

Coca-Cola and League of Legends Movie Viewing Parties

and now the #eCopa FIFA 17 Tournament on Battlefy.

But the Battlefy partnership is the most interesting because it focuses on a what I believe will be a key piece that will be needed to build the eSports infrastructure in the future:

Colleges.

The #eCopa tournament not only provides a $10,000 prize pool but more importantly, a Wildcard slot in the EA FIFA 17 Ultimate Regional Final.

This is very smart and Ill show you why.

Here’s how the qualifications work:

Coca-Cola Battlefy College Qualifications (Photo: Battlefy)

Once a student wins his/her own bracket — he or she gets to represent their school at the Regionals. Now you can start to tie it all together: eSports, Colleges and Brands.

If you need a quick primer, here’s what I wrote about it in May.

The biggest question of any Ad spend across any Medium boils down basically to: 1) How many people saw it, 2) How did they engage with it and 3) Do they feel better about the brand/want to buy the product.

I’d like to see the results post campaign but a few of the schools I checked didn’t have a very high participation rate after the opening rounds closed.

Coca-Cola Battlefy College Participation (Photo: Battlefy)

To be clear, I’m not saying this is a failure by any means — I’m saying the exact opposite.

I would guess that limited marketing was done at schools to educate the students about this opportunity. A minimal spend would have had a huge increase in ROI.

So going back to the success metrics, I hope it’s not a one-and-done but it’s a big open space.

It’s still very early and I’m happy to see Coca-Cola continue its investment into eSports especially in the Collegiate space.

PS Although technically not eSports, Coca-Cola has also partnered with 7–11 with another FIFA 17 promotion for the usual “Buy Something, Get Something” programs that work extremely well.

Coca-Cola, EA FIFA 17 and 711 (Photo: 711)

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