Connecting with Southeast Asian gamers

The gaming industry has a strong case as the most innovative and adaptable medium in the entertainment space. Even though the medium of video gaming has only entered the mass market for about 50 years - and been truly mainstream for substantially less time than that - the technological, commercial, and cultural innovations that have emerged from stakeholders in the space has outpaced almost every other form of entertainment. Gaming has changed the way we interact with and consume content, creating platforms and entire ecosystems out of lines of code and hardware.

I'm a strong believer in the gaming industry's potential to create connections both within and surrounding the immersive experience of gaming. A large part of our work here at Collab Asia is focused on the gaming community and it's given us insight into some of the best practices for brand outreach in the space, as well as ways we think brand outreach can further leverage innovations in the community. There's a great deal of untapped potential for brand outreach within the gaming space and that's what I want to talk about in this post.

When we think of advertising and brand outreach in gaming, we typically land on one of three methods:

direct outreach via sponsorship of competitive esports, which is likely to be endemic in nature;

direct outreach via sponsorship, endorsements, or partnerships with individual gamers or influencers;

or indirect outreach through adtech baked into a game itself.

Competitive esports sponsorship and influencer sponsorships/partnerships is our bread and butter among Collab Asia's work in the gaming space. We've created campaigns with our brand and creator partners around competitive esports and gaming focused video content that have helped brands improve both their exposure to and standing with consumers. (Collab Asia Gaming deck)

We call this form of brand outreach in the gaming space audience outreach, which describes any form of outreach whose first principles frame games as a creative medium for consumption by a passive audience. The above mentioned spectator sports-style esports, live-streaming, gaming focused content by influencers of various types, and narrative content developed using game engines/assets are all potential vehicles for audience outreach campaigns. In this sense, the gaming space is similar to a video or lifestyle genre.

There are many benefits to brands using audience outreach tools. Limitations on endemic collaboration aside - something I believe is artificial and will dive into later - this form of outreach is popular with brands because it's (a) familiar, (b) simple, and (c) agile. It's familiar because Influencer marketing and event sponsorship are some of the most common tools for brands to deploy in other content consumption spaces (we would know). It's simple because, while setting up a campaign can demand a great deal of creative horsepower and collaboration with the stakeholders involved if a brand is planning a campaign that goes beyond advertising spots (again, we would know), execution and timelines are very predictable.

Finally, and perhaps most relevant for the age we live in, audience outreach campaigns are some of the most adaptable and agile. At Collab Asia, we make it a point of pride to be able to fit seamlessly into a brand's existing strategy, providing the same level of data-driven insights and advice for campaigns in the gaming space as anywhere else. We've often measured campaign timelines from conception to launch in days and weeks, rather than weeks and months, and changing or adapting a campaign to feedback or developments in the market can be done quickly and frictionlessly.

It's pretty clear that audience outreach campaigns are a great tool for brands to reach members of the gaming space in a way that balances minimal friction and sufficient control over the execution. It's what explains its popularity among brands. But how effective is it at reaching and engaging audiences and are there better ways? The short and cliche disappointing answer you're going to get to both questions is, "it depends". The slightly longer answer held in the rest of the article is, "it depends" BUT the more interesting aspect of audience outreach in gaming is how its potential as an avenue for outreach is arguably not being fully realised.

Let's first take a look at brand outreach tools available in the gaming space. I don't want to dive too deeply into this topic in this article because it's worth exploring the potential of other methods in greater detail in a separate article but it's useful to get a sense of where audience outreach tools are relative to brand outreach generally to the gaming space. To brands looking to reach consumers - and, by extension, people like me - there are two relevant ways gaming enables outreach. One of them is the above mentioned model of audience outreach, which would have us see gaming as a vehicle for creating content to be consumed by an audience.

The other side of the gaming coin approaches brand outreach from the first principle that games are immersive experiences created for players. That may seem obvious to most people but it's all too easy to dismiss them out of hand as a viable means of brand outreach because of the perceived complexity involved in creating and executing campaigns that can be integrated within a game's framework doesn't play well with the kind of agile campaigns of today. But that doesn't mean there isn't a place for or immense value in player outreach through in-game channels.

Player outreach isn't a new concept, either, or one absent analogous examples in other forms of entertainment. Product placement in games has been around ever since graphics quality was high quality enough to distinctively make out a brand logo or product.

The diversity of game experiences can go further than simple placement. There is a wide spectrum of solutions for brands to connect to players ranging from ad overlays in freemium (usually mobile games) to entire story arcs, in-game events, or even entire games dedicated to promoting a particular brand or product. The evolution of games as product and advertising platforms is also worth noting, something I'll explore in a future post. For now, it's enough that we acknowledge other areas of the gaming space that can and should be used for brand outreach.

But back to the first question: how effective is audience outreach as a method of brand outreach? If we look at a breakdown of the types of brands that advertise with audience outreach, what we see are the vast majority of them are endemic brands, or brands that occupy the same or adjacent spaces. The most common brands are gaming hardware providers, telecommunications products, certain brands of food and beverage with a strong association with the gaming lifestyle, gaming-oriented social platforms, or even other games. Unlike their counterparts in spectator sports and influencers in the broader video space, sponsorship and brand partnerships have very little reach outside of their own sphere.

The worst case explanation is that brands outside of the gaming space don't see the audience that gaming content draws to be one worth pursuing. The best case is that audience outreach is so engaging for these endemic brands that they have essentially cornered the market for this type of content. The reality is somewhere in the middle, in that non-endemic brands, including ones we work with, are definitely interested in tapping into the growing gaming space for brand outreach but that they aren't entirely certain of the effectiveness of outreach through these channels.

What it really comes down to is the audience itself and how we differentiate among and approach segments of a global audience. Collab Asia works with brands around the world to deliver campaigns throughout the APAC region, with some of our largest audiences located in vastly diverse regions. I mostly work with the SEA markets but we operate in the gaming space in China, East Asia markets, and North America. We would take vastly different approaches to brand outreach in each market. Once we move past the first principles, the landscape changes in each market, from demographics to behaviour.

Take Southeast Asia compared to North America, for example.

There are a few notable similarities as well as differences in the market breakdown. North America has a larger percentage of older gamers, gamers who prefer gaming on console and PCs, as well as a wider variety of game genres that are able to hit a critical mass of popularity. Southeast Asia, on the other hand, skews substantially younger, is mobile first when it comes to gaming, and consumes a substantially higher proportion of gaming content. While the younger segments of both markets are somewhat aligned, factoring in general attitudes towards certain outreach methods reduces the overlapping areas for which campaigns can be similarly developed.

What we've seen in many other fields of video content but especially in gaming, are contrasting attitudes among audiences to partnerships between content creators and non-endemic brands. With endemic branding, influencers, e-sports professionals, and creators are akin to professional athletes or elite specialist performers in a given field. If they partner with brands that are perceived to improve upon or help obtain a high level of performance - whether true or not - it lends an air of legitimacy to their endorsement. Buying a Major League Gaming athlete's endorsed gaming mouse is the same as buying a pair of branded basketball shoes or football boots.

When it comes to non-endemic brands, however, the story changes. In many Western markets, a lot of non-endemic brand partnerships are looked upon with suspicion, creators allowed a limited quota of sponsored content until they're deemed to have "sold out" and it negatively affects their perception in the eyes of their fans. Contrast this with Asia, including Southeast Asia, where there is a higher degree of willingness to accept endorsements from influencers. Advertising in East, South, and Southeast Asia is endorsement based to a much greater extent than the West, due largely to cultural roots that emphasise reliance upon warm introductions from people within a vast community network.

This commercialisation of content, which is viewed as a corrupting influence in western markets - as seen in its most cartoonish form in Ready Player One - is par for the course. Some markets, like China, require endorsing influencers to sign their name to a product, much like a political candidate signs their campaign advert, and punishes the endorsing of bad products. This means endorsements can in fact add real value, especially in markets where reliance upon professional review sites or even exposure to them is questionable.

There is a real opportunity in Asia for non-endemic brands to branch out and tap into the gaming space as an avenue for brand outreach. Commercialisation of the gaming experience is already developing, with some notable product placement campaigns for non-endemic brands making an appearance in triple-A titles. Add that to the popularity of live-streaming in gaming and the intimate atmosphere it's able to create between a viewer and a creator, and you have a market that's already primed for audience brand outreach and no shortage of vehicles to bridge the gap between brands and consumers.

Brands should not be afraid to make that leap into audience outreach as well. There are many examples of unique and impactful endemic campaigns brands have been able to develop with content creators and e-sports gamers that go far beyond an ad spot in a video. Keep an eye out for some of our work; we're sure you'll be surprised by the kind of brands that will be venturing into gaming - and connecting with more consumers they would otherwise miss.