In this article we’ll talk about how eSports have developed over the last 40 years and why the world of iGaming has decided to invest in this discipline.

What are eSports?

Electronic sports can be defined as tournaments and competitions between multiple players who compete for victory on a previously decided video game and console on which to play. In some cases, however, the challenges are taken up by a single player who attempts to break the current record or to achieve the best score among the players.

About their history

Historical archives show us that the very first electronic sports tournament was organised at Stanford University in 1972, with about twenty participants challenging one another in a game called Spacewar! The prize was an annual subscription to Rolling Stone magazine, the promoter of the event.

Since then, the constant improvement of technology has caused the eSports phenomenon to develop and expand like wildfire, across different markets and target demographics, thanks also to the wide range of video games igniting competition such as FIFA, World of Warcraft and Fortnite.

Today, the eSports industry is worth a staggering $1.5 billion, thanks above all to the presence of multiple world tournaments (World Cyber Games, Electronic Sports World Cup and Dreamhack) national associations (Italy’s e-Sports Association, for example) and professional teams (from Italian Serie A teams with their respective eSports teams to Machete Gaming, founded by Hell Raton, member of Salmo’s Machete crew).

In 2017, an application was submitted for eSports to be admitted to the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee is considering this possibility, given the size of the market, the television revenues (matches are broadcast on Twitch and Sky) and the unique opportunity to bring the Olympics closer to millennials and Gen Z.

Fusion of iGaming and eSports

The growing interest in matches related to eSports tournaments has inevitably sparked the attention of iGaming’s big players, who have begun to appraise the most important competitions based on specific parameters such as the player’s skills, the video game, and the overall difficulty of the tournament.

To date, most international betting sites include a section dedicated to eSports, where gamblers can place their bets and enjoy the match streamed or on TV.

Considerations for the future

If on the one hand the pandemic has exponentially increased the number of players and bets, on the other there is still relatively low investment in the world of iGaming and eSports compared to the current value of the electronic sports market around the world.

Investments in marketing are still low, often due to lack of interest, but the opportunity is very attractive, and all betting platforms should be considering jumping on the eSports bandwagon.

Are you a betting platform? Contact us for more information or to request a quote: we have the right strategy for you!

In this article, as we’re dealing with a highly innovative product, we’ll need to start with the basics. Let’s talk about NFT Marketing

The acronym NFT stands for “non-fungible token”, where “non-fungible” means “non-replicable”. An NFT, therefore, is a certificate of digital ownership of a digital “object” or item, non-physical but existing and unique, authenticated and registered via the blockchain process, which makes it non-modifiable and non-reproducible.

This technology is increasingly popular today, with applications in the world of online gaming for the production of unique and collectible digital objects, sometimes inside virtual worlds such as Decentraland.

More and more people are showing an interest in NFTs, digital artifacts to show off in your own Metaverse “land”, and NFT art is much loved by celebrities. One thing is certain: the whole process is safe, accessible and transparent on dedicated platforms. So, no Deep Web or Christie’s-style luxury auctions.

But how can companies integrate these innovations into their promotional planning?

Let’s talk about NFT Marketing.

NFT and value creation for brands

The success of these innovations comes not only from their fresh and disruptive character, but also from the fact that they perfectly meet the desires of potential customers: owning something unique that they can “show off” within a community that recognizes its value.

For example, a high fashion or luxury brand might decide to create NFTs of its new collection, at a more accessible price in the digital version than the physical one. This way, it will be significantly expanding its audience of potential buyers, who will now have access to a brand that has always been inaccessible to them in real life.

A strategy based on exclusivity, on that uniqueness factor which is the essential feature of the concept of NFTs.

These rules don’t just apply to B2C though. Even in B2B it’s possible to fully exploit the potential of such a flexible and dematerialized tool – just think of the digital companies that, in return for the purchase of an NFT, offer premium consulting packages or invitations to exclusive events.

How to structure an effective strategy

NFTs, therefore, can be deployed and promoted in brands’ digital marketing activities.

Transparency is key. It’s crucial to keep your potential customers clearly informed. Not everyone knows what NFTs are and what benefits they offer. Brands must indicate precisely how many “units” will be created, on which platform they will be available, and which additional benefits or services come with their possession.

The objectives of an NFT marketing campaign are different from a traditional campaign and must be studied and defined immediately, as they can directly influence the type, quantity and value of the tokens to be created.

A company, among its many possible goals, may wish to:

• Raise awareness of its brand and improve its reputation, creating a perception of itself as innovative and tech-savvy
• Generate new revenue streams, even on non-”canonical” personas
• Expand its product range and conduct research on new digital products
• Reach new audiences
• Offer services and event invitations
• Create a completely new user experience and channel for customer interaction
• Raise money for charity

The promotion

The campaign promotion can be done on traditional channels: SEO positioning, communication on social media, e-mail marketing and influencer marketing initiatives. In particular, Reddit and Discord seem to be the most heavily used social channels at the moment.

Special mention goes to an activity all too often neglected: co-marketing, which is achieving great results in the NFT world.

When a company producing “pop” goods collaborates with an online gaming and tech giant, success is usually guaranteed.

Brands need to provide clear terms and conditions proving what the customer bought, what rights they own and what rights they don’t.

An unsatisfactory user experience and difficulties or losses resulting from poorly designed software can damage the brand.

Brands with a strong environmental purpose should be aware of the environmental impact of NFTs, due to the excessive resource consumption of blockchains (such as Ethereum) that use the so-called proof-of-work mechanism, one of the most effective network security protocols that can consume a large amount of energy and that works as an entry gate that discourages attacks or abuse of users towards a client server.

What is a community?

For years we have been talking about community base marketing, i.e. the companies’ propensity to get closer to potential customers, becoming part of the group and approaching them as if they were real people.

This need comes from the end user’s tendency to drift away from the traditional marketing strategies and levers, such as “classical” advertising or influencer marketing, which are considered to be partially inflated.

As a consequence, the brand and, of course, the company behind it must “humanise”, get closer and actively participate as members of a community.

Before dealing with the specific way of approaching marketing more in detail, we need to clarify the concept of community, how it is born, and what its potentialities are.

A community is defined as a space, virtual or real, in which people share similar values and interests, and feel a connection or a belonging to something.

There are 3 essential values that reveal the belonging to a bran community:

– awareness (acknowledgement of connections between people and distinctions from other groups)
– rituals and traditions
– sense of active commitment towards the community

Although such indicators apply to communities in general, in the case of a brand community they adjust to what a brand wants to communicate in its own identity.

Why do community marketing and what changes compared to the past?

Simply, community marketing leverages the human being’s natural propensity to aggregate, to feel part of something, providing values, messages, and meanings to share with the members of a group, online and offline.

Creating a community from scratches is a complex activity, therefore big brands often decide to directly enter a community which is already consolidated, choosing it precisely according to the values shared by the brand.

Pros and cons of community marketing

Pros:

– better customer experience
– high fidelity rate
– word-of-mouth growth (the good old buzz marketing)
– humanisation of the brand towards the customer

Cons:

– high competence specialisation
– medium/long-term strategy
– high effort

Community marketing: example of case study

Certainly, one of the most beautiful and interesting examples to follow and to talk about is the community marketing chosen and applied by Lego. A few years ago, the Danish company created a new category of brick products, called Lego Ideas.
The strategy is entirely directed to regular Lego users, and to creative people in general. Substantially, all that Lego does is challenging its customers to invent a new product from scratches by using their own pieces.
The strategy is structured so as to pass from offline (model building) to online; on the Lego website, anyone can vote for the best idea.

Guess what happens next? Yes, exactly: the idea that gets the most votes is SENT TO PRODUCTION, thus allowing everyone to buy it.

Examples of necessary tools

To implement a correct community marketing strategy, you need to use basic tools, without which it may become impossible to “engage” a community.

Of course, we are talking about the classical social media showcases like Facebook and Instagram, passing through messaging tools like Discord and Telegram, which allow to get in close contact with possible target customers and to interact like a real person.

Among the other methods, in connection with offline marketing, we would like to mention espousing a social cause, made of values shared with all the people belonging to the “pack”; organising live events (which are back at last), where it is possible to humanise the brand even more, to meet customers in person and to make them feel part of a big family.

Last but not least, let’s introduce the concept of GAMIFICATION

By now, gamification has been a must of marketing for years, taking advantage of some psychological levers to make people act in a certain way, promising gratification.

Moreover, implementing a gamification strategy contributes, in the world of social gaming, to create and consolidate the community. We will deepen this topic in the next content dedicated to the explosion of advergaming in the world.

Conclusions

For sure, community marketing will continue to be used over the years to come to transmit empathy towards the customers, constantly creating connections which go beyond the purchase, building customer loyalty and consolidating relationships between people.