To develop a modern business, search for new customers and promote a product, a strong team of marketers is needed who will regularly update the brand’s presence in the market and look for new platforms for advertising. Esports marketing has become a trend in recent years. This is a fairly young direction, which, at the same time, has simply crazy growth rates. Analysts’ forecasts are impressive. According to the most conservative estimates, in the next ten years, e-sports competitions can catch up with football, hockey, basketball, and other classic sports championships in popularity. There is already a growing generation of young people who are actively addicted to computer games, for example, those present on Game Karma.
In proportion to the growing interest in esports events, the annual amount of investment in this area is also growing. Top brands such as Coca-Cola, Nvidia, Intel, Red Bull, Mercedes-Benz, and others have been actively working with esports marketing agencies for a long time, promoting their products among esports fans. This is quite an interesting layer of the audience for marketers, which, despite its promise, was practically not taken seriously by many until recently.
The very phenomenon of esports has recently been considered something of child’s play. But when the prize pools of the top championships exceeded $35,000,000, and the number of views on online broadcasts began to amount to tens of millions, it became clear that it was simply stupid to lose sight of the esports market.
How to Find a Common Language with eSports Fans?
According to professionals from the esports marketing agency Adrun, people who are fond of esports are a special social group with their own characteristics. For example, these people have a negative attitude toward aggressive advertising and often do not watch TV, preferring to spend their free time on the Internet. They actively follow the development of modern technologies, can analyze and verify information, and simultaneously trust their idols, whom they consider opinion leaders.
To make a good impression on the audience of eSports fans, it is necessary to conduct thorough marketing research that will allow you to find out the needs of representatives of this social group. After that, it is worth developing a strategy to promote an advertising campaign. Today, esports marketing is a tool that allows you to promote almost any product. At different times, tournaments and teams’ sponsors were brands representing various business sectors — from fast food to automakers.
An important point when interacting with the esports community is the use of opinion leaders, such as popular esports bloggers, commentators, team members, and other media personalities. At the same time, the advertising campaign should be native and unobtrusive. The audience responds well to creative integrations that are unique, interesting, and humorous.
Game marketing agencies make it possible to attract bright representatives of the eSports scene to promote products who, in a language accessible to the audience, can talk about the benefits of the product being promoted easily and unobtrusively. This approach will help not only popularize the product among the audience but also form a strong association between the advertised product and eSports competitions in the minds of fans.
