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SteveRussell
17. März 2017, 09:14
Hello community,

Being a passionate gamer myself, I am currently investigating the brand – consumer relationship in eSports for my master thesis project. I would highly appreciate if you could answer some questions for me and maybe we can even start an interesting discussion from this.

1. What do you think about brand involvement in eSports? Do you consider brands merely as financial supporter of the eSports scene or is there something beyond that?
2. Do you remember a moment where a brand added value to your eSports experience? If yes, how?
3. What attributes do you consider important for communications with the eSports consumer?
4. Which specific marketing activities do you like by brands active in eSports, such as Intel, Red Bull or Visa?

Any answer would be of great help! Thank you in advance.

omani
17. März 2017, 11:29
Hey,

1. In ideal case the brands have something to do with the sphere they are sponsoring. (Like SteealSeries etc.) But Cross-sponsoring is ok as well. They bring money to the teams and cool merch to the fans. I think it's a good thing.

2. If I use good headphones while I watching e-sport. (Is that what you mean?)

3. ?

4. Everything where you can win something is good. And I like the short movies from BETWAY with the Ninjas in Pyjamas.

LG,
Omani

SteveRussell
17. März 2017, 11:56
Hi Omani,

Thanks a lot for the quick answers! I made some clarifications below and added some questions to get a better understanding:

1. Yes that makes absolutely sense. Why do you consider it important that teams are financially supported? What does the merchandise mean to you?

2. Yeah that could be anything, but we are trying to look more into brands that have no direct relation to the industry. So can you maybe recap a moment where the product was not faciliating the interaction between you and the brand? E.g. Redbull's newspage about eSports.

3. I mean attributes, such as authenticity, surprise...

4. Oh yeah, these two are great examples of good marketing in eSports

Thanks again mate!

PanTo
17. März 2017, 15:49
1. What do you think about brand involvement in eSports? Do you consider brands merely as financial supporter of the eSports scene or is there something beyond that?

For sure, companies who get involved in Esports, dont want to spend money for free. They seek the best way to get the attraction from their potential target audience. Especially in the sector of gaming, IT-Hardware, Peripherie etc its important to stay in focus for the target audience because this group of people is networking so much (via Twitter, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram etc) that loosing your customers, makes it very hard to win them back on a market that has such a high variety of products with so many brands.
Anyway those key brands are very important because they created the esport scene how we know it in present time. Intel Extreme Masters (Intel), Electronic Sports World Cup (nVidia), World Cyber Games (Samsung) etc. were the first beginnings of big events with big pricepools and big influence from those brands. Now there are also brands like insurance companies, energy drinks, eyeglasses manufacturers and many more supporting teams all over the world and want to get their part from the target audience.
I think its very good developement, because also smaller teams and organisations have their chance to create partnerships and being able to participate, for example at offline events and get the travel costs covered.

2. Do you remember a moment where a brand added value to your eSports experience? If yes, how?
Yes, because with brands like Twitch or other Streaming Services watching games online in a very great quality, or also being able to watch "Stars" playing in their teamhouse or own apartment is something you never could have done before.

3. What attributes do you consider important for communications with the eSports consumer?
-Reputation of the brand and quality of the products.
Mouth to mouth propaganda is everywhere and when your teammates advise you better peripherie instead of a 19€ mouse from a noname company you feel very fast, that you are not on a competitive level with noname equipment.
-Be modern and trendy
People want to have a bling bling LED Keyboard with 16000 colours?! You need to have it in your portfolio. People want to have a shining Headset?! You need it in your portfolio. If you dont want to, you will maybe lose a big part of the market to other companies.
-Be present
With very less work and costs brands can improve their own range. Partner up with some Offline events (also small LAN's) where the people can test and win your products. Give samples for free to caster or youtuber to test them. If your products are good and the people are satisfied with using them, they will tell others about and you have a good chance to gain new customers.

4. Which specific marketing activities do you like by brands active in eSports, such as Intel, Red Bull or Visa?
Videos for special events (Fragmovies, Aftermovies), meet and greets with players and teams, merchandise for fans.