Gm, welcome to the lobby.

Gen A and Gen Z’s top forms of entertainment, the “Best Practices for Advertising in Gaming”, Discord adds ads, and we highlight two new gaming & esports org partnerships that deserve attention.

Grab your coffee, ready up, and let’s drop in 🪂
Here’s what we have for you today:

• Gaming marketing firm Livewire shares report that confirms suspicions about Gen A and Gen Z’s behavior 🔎

• “Best Practices for Advertising in Gaming” released by governing body, IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau)👨‍💻

• Discord enters the rabbit hole of paid advertising with digital ads 🕳️

• Investing for gamers? Acorns partners with 100 Thieves 🌰

• OpTic takes the pitch with Italian soccer club, Juventus ⚽

🔗 This week’s interesting links

• Esports World Cup reaches 18 total titles for it’s inaugural event

• NRG share new research looking at the beauty habits of gamers

• Private Lobby’s own Zach Eller & Justin Palacios make announcement 

• Ubisoft hit with another round of layoffs

🔎 Gaming marketing firm Livewire shares report that confirms suspicions about Gen A and Gen Z’s behavior

Gaming is the top entertainment channel of choice for Gen A, Gen Z and Millennials. Period.

Global marketing firm and gametech company, Livewire, recently published their 2024 Next Gen Attention Study. The research looked at more than 1,800 folks across the UK, US and Australia and while gaming was the top choice for how these generations spend their time, the more interesting takeaways can be found in the differing expectations between Millennials and the younger gamers following them.

“Next Gen” for the purpose of the study is defined as Gen A and Gen Z as one cohort. This group enjoys branded moments inside of games ~20% more than Millenials, while immersive experiences are an increasing expectation. Interactive moments and playable experiences posted 65% and 69% favorability respectively, with Gen A more likely to purchase after seeing a brand in-game (65% v. 45% of Gen Z and 40% of Millennials).

Also worth noting: the gaming landscape as outlined in the first few pages of the report shows 3.2B gamers globally (current population sits at 8.1B), 201M gamers in the US (2022 census states 333.3M- so nearly ⅔ of our country), and a pretty even split between male and female gamers. They cite The Economist, Statista, We Are Social and another source for the basis of this overview but these are still fantastic numbers to consider when trying to answer “how big is gaming?” The last part to consider is that 66% of gamers play on smartphones, with an increasing affinity for tablet and mobile games in the Millennial generation revealing that “gaming on the go is part of their gaming diet.”

👀 Our POV

The sample size is fairly small, but still significant. The other thing to mention before getting into the meat of the analysis is that these 1,800 were gamers to begin with. So while we tout that gaming is the top choice for entertainment among people in these three generations, the data and insights pulled from this particular report is rooted in gaming bias.

That said, this report is a phenomenal look at how to serve authentic experiences to Next Gen players. From a behavioral perspective, this reinforces some of what we have been saying for a little while now: younger gamers do this on a daily basis. They play 4-5 times per week and over 50% of Gen A and Gen Z engage with gaming content outside of gameplay at least twice per week. Livewire also calls out all respondents choosing top titles across these two generations selected at least one social reason for picking the games that they did (friends play it, multiplayer options and/or ability to connect with others). Video games have become a third place for folks ages 6-24.

GameSquare has been bullish on in-game experiences, as made clear by the launch of Moonlight Studios, as have many other groups (like Livewire!). The biggest takeaway from this study is that “immersion over impressions” will be a phrase that continues to become more and more prevalent as the space matures. Granted, I’m not saying that bespoke, heavier-lift solutions are always the way to go. As with any tactic on the table, there is a time and place where it makes sense depending on a business’s goals. IAB noted in their Changing the Game report that 93% of media buyers intend to invest in gaming over the next year. There is a whole lot more of that channel mix pie (including programmatic in-game inventory like your standard “paid media” distribution) that doesn’t actually include these types of investments. I digress…

The data in the chart above is staggering- while digital adopters like Millennials have become tolerant of branded in-game moments, digital natives and digitally advanced gamers have not only begun to enjoy but to expect these same elements inside a dynamic marketing mix. In their blog post outlining the findings, Livewire’s team defines the three categories above as characters, skins, world-builds, interactive billboards, playables, rewarded videos “and more.” 

As an industry, we have to continue to get smarter on how we quantify the value and the return on these types of executions. Each game and its publisher curate different KPIs, but aside from a little funny math to try and get to 1:1 translations (ex. is 1 minute inside of a world build “equivalent” to a completed video view?), education around what is important and what’s not (as well as a strong emphasis on contextualizing the KPIs available) will help us progress as the inventory and opportunity in these titles continues to evolve.

Things have been exciting so far, but the next few years are going to be an absolute blast. 🚀

- Brandon Painter (Private Lobby)

👨‍💻 “Best Practices for Advertising in Gaming” released by governing body, IAB

The IAB (or Interactive Advertising Bureau) is an American advertising business organization that develops industry standards, conducts research, and provides legal support for the online advertising industry. 

The organization held its first PlayFronts event in 2022, a watershed moment in recognition and validation for the industry that envisions, builds and deploys advertisements of all kinds within the gigantic digital ecosystem that is “gaming.” This year was the third iteration of the event, with so much demand for the programming that IAB added a second day. 

“IAB PlayFronts empowers brands and agencies to mobilize the full potential of gaming as a strategic advertising channel. As the gaming landscape undergoes constant evolution, the burgeoning demand prompted our decision to expand IAB PlayFronts to a second day, reaffirming the ability of gaming to deliver meaningful business results.” Carryl Pierre-Drews, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, IAB.

Some of what is touched on in the Livewire study is relevant to this set of guidelines, while other types of in-game advertising is not. Here is what is not included in the 46-page document:

• Console platforms - PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, etc. Console gaming involves specialized creative considerations that warrant separate guidelines.

• Adjacent ad units - Interstitial, banner, and video ads served around or within games should refer to existing IAB standards.

• Hardcoded ads - Branded assets integrated directly into game environments are not covered by these guidelines.

• Viewability - An important metric but establishing the criteria for viewability is beyond the current scope of this document.

What this does include: 

• Audio ads 

• Interactive overlays 

• Intrinsic/native in-game ads 

• Rich media and playable ads

👀 Our POV

The objective IAB sought to complete by releasing these guidelines is simple: provide a framework for developing creative that engages audiences while respecting the gaming experience across mobile and PC gaming. Any move in this direction is an admirable one. Continuing to make steps forward by formalizing and standardizing the creation and deployment of these units only elevates the industry. 

Echoing something I said in the POV above, the more sophisticated and immersive in-game activations a brand can drive still fall into a bucket of ambiguity when it comes to any kind of governance. This makes “selling them in” a delicate balance of science and faith, but the data continues to show how gamers are leaning hard into the Wild West of in-game.

Someone will start to wrap their arms around the entire scope of this space. It’s only a matter of time.

- Brandon Painter (Private Lobby)

🕳️ Discord enters the rabbit hole of paid advertising with digital ads

While Discord has largely had a stellar reputation since launch, they’ve caught some flak for the news that game ads will be coming to the platform through “Sponsored Quests” despite claiming to “not sell advertisements” as a key differentiator of their business. They initially broke the news on March 7th through a blog post where Discord’s SVP of Product, Peter Sellis, talked about the move and said we could expect a rollout in the coming weeks (about now). These “Quests” will be popups that incentivize players to play games for a reward. At the time of writing this, I have a pop-up offering a skin set in The Finals in exchange for streaming the game to friends for 15 minutes. 

More recently, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that it viewed materials from Discord this past Saturday, outlining additional details on this new feature. A slideshow read "We’ll get you in front of players. And those players will get you into their friend groups." This tool is being marketed as a tool for game developers to increase engagement temporarily and provide rewards to players for including it in their social routing.

An example of these “Quests”

Smart business or anti-consumer?

While some people may rage at the thought of ads coming to Discord, it’s worth considering their potentially crucial part in the platform’s survival. Discord has some work to do after reportedly raising over $1 billion in funding over its lifespan and still reportedly not being profitable and laying off 17% of its workforce in January.

As it stands, Discord seems to be limiting these promotional quests to promoting games. It’s a means of driving more users towards games, nothing more (so far). It’s a clever way to make Discord the facilitator of cool rewards for players while connecting them with games that need to maintain a population.

👀 Our POV

Honestly, I like this a lot! I’m a sucker for free goodies and things like the example above are just what I need to hop back into a game I enjoy but that may have fallen out of my rotation. This may be the best possible version of advertisements Discord could have rolled out because they actually respect the user.

• Sponsored Quest ad graphics take up minimal screen space and aren’t invasive

• They reduce complexity and keep you on the platform, like having you stream to friends in a call

• You can hide the ad once you’ve seen it. You need to do this manually for each quest but it’s nice that you can remove the popup if it doesn’t interest you, while still being able to find the quest

• These quests are supposedly tailored to you and the games you play. 

As it stands, Discord seems to be handling this well and I applaud them for getting innovative at a time where they still need to seek profitability. Discord is mainly used for gaming and being the matchmaker for games and gamers through quests is a neat idea. As long as I’m not getting targeted product or service ads, I’m content with this addition. They are providing users a free reward for engaging with something that they’re relatively interested in. What concerns me is the path they’ve started down. I sincerely hope this doesn’t lead to expanded ad offerings that don’t feel natural or disrupt the core user experience.

- Brendan Valentine (Private Lobby)

🌰 Investing for gamers? Acorns partners with 100 Thieves

Esports, gaming, and lifestyle brand 100 Thieves has scored big with new partner, Acorns. From the Acorns website, “Acorns helps you save & invest. Invest spare change, bank smarter, earn bonus investments, and more!”.

Acorns main selling point and how it separates itself from it’s competitors is their focus on the value of consistent contributions and compounding investment.

100 Thieves audience is the ideal customer for Acorns, falling heavily into the 18-34 age bracket, these gamers may not invest as much upfront as older or more family-centered customers for Acorns; however, their value is longevity and loyalty.

Loyalty not just to their favorite gaming organization, 100 Thieves, but also their loyalty to brands that provide value to them, and support their passions, which Acorns has demonstrated incredibly well through this partnership.

💸 Let’s talk value

• Simplicity: Opening and getting started with Acorns is super easy. The whole process really only takes 10-15 minutes, and participating in the 100 Thieves related promotion adds no complexity or difficulty at all.
  
  The Acorns x 100 Thieves landing page gives visitors a 3-step process:

  1. Tap the link above and create your Acorns account in less than 5 minutes!

  2. Set up a Recurring Investment of $5 or more.

  3. Get your $20 bonus & automatically enter to win a $7,000 gaming setup and a $5,000 bonus investment when you make your first successful Recurring Investment.
     

• Financial education: The main difference between Acorns and other investment platforms is Acorns’ focus on consistency and long-term compounding interest rather than the more sexy and “active” investing of it’s competitors. Acorns illustrate this on the Acorns x 100 Thieves landing page with a compounding interest calculator.
  

  

  
  You can see that with only a $200 investment, with only $5 weekly contributions, you could earn $6K over the course of 15 years with an average annual return of 5%.
  

• Added value: From the Acorns x 100 Thieves landing page:
  

  “A little financial responsibility could really pay off...

  Investing is a smart move when it comes to your financial future — and it could give your gaming a boost, too. Sign up for Acorns and set up and complete a Recurring Investment of $5+ before 4/30 to be entered to win a $7,000 gaming setup and a $5,000 bonus investment!
  

  • $5,000 bonus investment

  • Corsair PC

  • Samsung Odyssey Monitor 55”

  • SCUF Envision Pro CourageJD Controller

  • Higround SNOWSTONE Base 65 Keyboard

  • Streamlabs Ultra Subscription”

🚩 Flag on the play…

We’ve established why we feel Acorns is a good fit for 100 Thieves and their audience but let’s take a look how the org announced this partnership.

This, to me, is the epitome of what's not working in esports right now. Teams taking partnerships and pushing out a lazy announcement to appease a deliverable list.

This is HUNDRED THIEVES! We've gotten to the point where they announce a new partnership with a basic graphic and barely clear 100 likes?! It's.....a bummer IMO. I don't blame 100T for doing it but jeez, we should all strive for better.

I'm let down by the fact they made no effort to put their weight behind the announcement or do something unique. They're a brand I expect more from. I’m glad they're getting partnerships and this is a good one but I wish there was more meat to it than a giveaway and a very low effort announcement.
 
- Brendan Valentine & Zach Eller (Private Lobby)

⚽ OpTic takes the pitch

Last Friday, gaming & esports organization and lifestyle brand, OpTic Gaming, announced their newest partnership with European soccer (or “football”...) giant, Juventus. The initial announcement saw Scump, H3CZ, Hitch, and Methodz visit the HQ in Turin, Italy sharing their gameday experience, tour of the Juventus facility, and the club’s Allianz Stadium.

⚡ Quick quote from OpTic

Juventus is not the first club OpTic have collaborated with but they are the first not from Dallas. They have previously collaborated with “OpTic Night” at Texas Rangers baseball games and at a Dallas Mavericks basketball game where they released special edition OpTic-themed jerseys.

👀 Our POV

I think there’s a lot more crossover in traditional sports & esports audiences than people think. In basic terms — they’re both competitions featuring people playing at the highest level at a certain sport or game that can be played by anyone. Whether it be on a real soccer field or a virtual world. I know for myself, I always have either an esports tournament or sports competition up on my second monitor 24/7.

A lot of these professional athletes are gamers too — a few that come to mind are Tyreek Hill, Suga Sean O'Malley, and Max Verstappen. All athletes who even stream on Twitch! A few are fans of the esports side as well. During OpTic’s Major II run last month, Orland Magic guard Jalen Suggs tweeted out in support of the team all weekend.

The first thing that came to mind when it this partnership was unveiled was the FaZe Clan x Manchester City collab that happened in 2022. Together the two created co-branded merchandise, live event meetups in Manchester & Los Angeles, as well as the players taking the field to warm up in co-branded kits following the announcement.

The FaZe Clan x Manchester City collab and partnership was really cool and likely sold a good amount of their co-branded merchandise but was it truly impactful? I’m not sure.

I’m looking forward to seeing how OpTic can improve upon the FaZe x Man City partnership in a demographic that I personally believe OpTic has a ton of potential in.

- Justin Palacios (Private Lobby)

💼 Job Board

• Associate Director, Marketing for Razer (Irvine, CA)

• Global Partnerships Manager for 2K (Novato, CA) 

• Marketing Lead, LATAM for Supercell (San Franciscio, CA)

• Product Manager for Epic Games (Cary, NC) 

🌞 Share of the Week

🤝 Share Private Lobby

Help your colleagues, friends, and teammates stay up to date on the latest gaming & esports marketing news by sharing our link: https://privatelobby.gg/subscribe

Disclaimer: our views are ours and in no way represent those of our employers.