3 Ways Non-Endemic Brands Succeed With the Game Viewing Audience
Endemic brands are brands that occupy a natural space within a market. For example, a sports clothing brand advertising running shoes during a sporting event would be engaged in endemic advertising.
In the gaming ecosystem, endemic brands offer things like computer components, gaming peripherals, and games other than the one being viewed. And while there might be a big audience for products like these, it would be a mistake to think that only endemic brands can succeed when advertising in the online gaming and esports ecosystem. There is a larger, growing culture emerging out of the game viewing audience – one that leaves room for non-endemic brands to succeed in big ways.
To break through to this growing community, here are 3 ways your non-endemic brand can succeed with the game viewing audience.
1. Connect with the community
Millions of people around the world consider gaming a lifestyle, and from this a tightknit and thriving community has emerged. As with most communities, all sorts of cultures and subcultures have grown organically from gaming, so it’s important to view the gaming lifestyle as less about entertainment and more with a human-centric lens. This way, you’ll have far more opportunities to pin down what the game viewing audience actually want. And the beauty is that the scale of these communities have gotten to a point where they are not niche and represent every slice of society!
For example, you might not know that the younger gamer demographics are far less interested in junk food and are instead embracing better for you brands. OLIPOP, one of our better for you brand successes, even had healthy living obsessed streamers xtinagayton and sueptime from Misfits Gaming do a sponsored stream for OLIPOP to help demonstrate the power of the game viewing audience.
2. Find parallels to draw from
There’s so much more to the gaming world than the games themselves. Cryptocurrency, fashion, and healthy living are fantastic examples of interests that strike a chord in gaming culture, so finding parallels between gaming and your brand is likely easier than you realize.
The first step to finding connections is listening to the audience you want to connect with. Take a personal approach when learning about gaming culture. Attend esports tournaments, and actively listen to users on Reddit, Discord and Twitch. Not only will you develop a better understanding of what they want, learning and gauging behaviors firsthand can be invaluable in molding your advertising to suit the audience.
3. Integrate with the gaming sphere
Tech-savvy gamers now regularly use tools like ad-blockers and VPNs to shut down ads that historically delivered great exposure. Although a cause for concern for many brands out there, it represents a valuable opportunity to change things up. In the case of the game viewing audience, studying the unique way advertising applies in gaming culture can offer unique advertising solutions for non-endemic brands.
Take the time to consider what this new audience thinks, feels, and enjoys while gaming and reconsider how your own brand could relate to them in an esports or casual streaming context. And remember that competition and casual are very different mediums for gamers – approach as its own unique beast to get a sense of what appeals to different audience segments.
Ready to introduce your brand to the game viewing audience?
Succeeding as a non-endemic brand in the gaming world relies on seeing the game viewing audience as a rich and diverse culture. As with traditional advertising, paying attention to wants and needs is key to encouraging brand awareness through viewability.
If you need help working out how to approach this growing world of esports and casual gaming, Thece is happy to show you what can be done with our Livestream Ad Network and the user-friendliness of our advertising turnkey solution.
