Media Buying Briefing: Agencies cultivate the next generation of influencers through gaming

“Gaming platforms are becoming social hubs because they offer something traditional social media lacks — immersion and interactivity,” said Eric Lee, CTO of Stagwell digital agency Left Field Labs. “Unlike public social networks, gaming spaces aren’t necessarily about broadcasting to the widest possible audience. They’re about connecting deeply with a community that’s initially built around shared in-game purpose or objective, but allows individual growth within a social system.”

Advertisers are expected to spend some $8.6 billion in gaming ad revenue in 2024, with total U.S. revenues more than doubling over the last five years — and by 2026, that will surpass $10 billion, per eMarketer.

And an increasing number of young people are becoming gamers: U.S. consumers ages 12-34 are most likely to identify as digital gamers, while, 44% of Gen Z and 43% of millennials play games every day, per eMarketer’s 2023 forecast.

“The image of a largely male, largely teen audience engaging with games on costly gaming consoles is outdated,” said Daniel Konstantinovic, an analyst at eMarketer covering media and entertainment.

Dentsu gaming investments

For its part, holding company Dentsu has been laying the groundwork to engage Gen Z creators and audiences through various gaming and anime activations. The Japan-based holdco took another big step last week with Roblox, when Dentsu launched a new initiative, House of Creators, to bring in the up-and-coming generation of creators. The program will provide creators with financial support, mentorship on gaming and design, and brand partnership opportunities.

The first phase of this initiative will aim to bring in big Japanese anime titles, such as “Attack on Titan,” manga titles and other IP on Roblox, while the next phase will turn creator ideas into original titles, which some creators already have, and then expand to other platforms (like Fortnite) and increase merchandising globally.

“It’s a learning process, but we see this as a new standard where we work with the community, collaborate and listen to the community, and then launch,” said Shusuke Morioka, senior manager of Dentsu Innovation Initiative at Dentsu Group. “It’s crazy how the ecosystem is going, but we would like to shine the spotlight on these, like original titles on Roblox — and then help them navigate how to come out of just not Roblox, but expand into other fields.”

House of Creators lives within the Dentsu Innovation Initiative, a division of Dentsu Group that explores emerging technologies from the metaverse to sports. DII leadership will oversee the House of Creators programs, with some potential changes as the company shifts its structure in the coming year, and it will continue to add roles with a mix of outside talent and internal people, said Keigo Aoki, DII’s executive director.

The creator acceleration program will bring in 30 creators by the end of 2024. Some of the other programs will focus on using existing IP with these creators’ work, growing content within existing games and developing new content formats using original creator ideas, such as a manga contest in collaboration with publisher Kodansha that will feature the winning creator’s comic.

All this builds on Dentsu’s past efforts around gaming. In 2022, the company partnered with Microsoft to build a Fortnite-like metaverse campus, exploring retail, showroom and other enterprise applications with its clients. Last July, Dentsu spun off a new company, Dentsu Anime Solutions, focused on expanding its anime businesses globally, while continuing to grow its other anime division, Dentsu Content Business Design Center.

Don’t forget Twitch and YouTube

Gaming’s growth also benefits livestreaming and video platforms such as YouTube and Twitch, as audiences gravitate toward gaming content and livestreaming their play. Some influencers are also building their monetization and subscriber businesses via Patreon, or connecting through Discord. As gamers and creators grow up on these platforms over the next few years, the marketing opportunities will also grow. (Of some 66 million daily Roblox users, around 67% are under the age of 16, while 14% are older than 25.)

Other media agencies are taking note and tapping into this potential. For example, Wpromote in 2021 partnered with a finance-related client to launch a Twitch campaign targeting the cryptocurrency audience — “but it quickly became clear that Twitch wasn’t just a niche platform,” explained Christine Schrader, vp of strategic innovation at Wpromote.

“Pretty much everyone is a gamer now, so we are using Twitch to challenge audience assumptions on the brand side and diversify media for brands across verticals,” Schrader said.

Dani Mariano, president of Razorfish, agreed that gaming influencers are gaining on both gaming and video apps, as more Gen Alpha users have access to gaming consoles and mobile devices. (By age 13, 69% of Alphas own a gaming console, per Razorfish research.)

“We know that Gen Alphas prefer content that is quick, digestible and entertaining, which is the perfect format for gaming content,” Mariano said.

Gaming as the next social platform

Agencies already recognize gaming environments as the next place for building social communities — and many have been working more closely with influencers and immersive studios to get in on the ground floor.

Agatha Blueuzen, managing director at creator and gaming-focused influencer agency Cherry Pick Gaming, said the “next generation of consumers, including Gen Alpha and Gen Z, sees gaming platforms as millennials see social media — a place where they can socialize, engage with their favorite brands and develop their digital footprints.”

Ann Hand, CEO of Super League, a gaming and immersive content company working with brands (including State Farm and Netflix), agencies, creators and gaming platforms, added that open-world virtual platforms like Roblox and Minecraft are some of the biggest testing grounds where brands can experiment with digital products, be it toys or food, before launching in the physical world.

“Talking to [brands, agencies] or investors even, I often say, ‘Suspend what you think about as video gaming,’” Hand said. “Because especially when you talk about these open-world platforms like Roblox and Minecraft and, increasingly, Fortnite, they’re really just the next generation of social media. It’s a co-creation channel, just like Instagram.”

Blueuzen argued this social connection in gaming will generate more creator and brand collaborations in the form of sponsored gaming tournaments featuring creators, as well as brands bringing their IP to a game — which explains why Dentsu is pursuing and expanding its gamer/creator strategy.

“Gaming is the perfect medium for game studios, brands and creators to collaborate on fan-centric experiences,” Blueuzen summed up.

Color by numbers

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s debate last week totaled some 67.1 million viewers across 17 television networks — surpassing the 51 million viewers during the debate between President Joe Biden and the Republican nominee back in June. With a record $12 billion in estimated ad revenue for this year’s political spending cycle, where is the inventory demand and how does segmentation look? The latest data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau surveying ad sellers sheds some light:

• 89% of ad sellers (including publishers, platforms and ad tech) accepting political ads increased their inventory for the category compared to the last presidential cycle — and 86% of them saw an increase in demand for political ads compared to then.
• 84% have raised their political ad rates compared to the last presidential cycle.
• After Harris announced her candidacy, 91% of sellers saw an increase in political ad demand at the national level, with an increase of 75% at the local level.
• 96% saw an uptick in the use of custom audience segments by political advertisers, and of those seeing an increase, the segments by highest demand are: political affiliation (72%), interest-based,  (50%), geographical (44%), race/ethnicity (42%) and age (40%).
• It’s good news that the majority of sellers have safeguards to detect misinformation (83%) and prevent it (78%) in their ads. Whether they work is another question altogether.

Takeoff & landing

• Independent PMG launched PMG Sports Lab to innovate, test and learn new ways to market on sports content, and will work with hockey franchise the Dallas Stars as well as A Parent Media Co., which launched Victory+, a regional sports streaming service.
• Account moves: OMD China won media duties for footwear brand Hoka One One … Independent Novus Media landed media AOR duties for Chicago-based DePaul University … Australian independent shop Magic will handle all Amazon advertising for security firm Swann there, as well as in the U.S. and U.K.
• Personnel moves: Omnicom Media Group’s PHD hired Vincent Rebeix to be its new global COO, following a stint at GroupM’s EssenceMediacom where he was global product and solutions officer. He will be based in London … VaynerMedia Asia Pacific tapped Karen Coleman to be its new country manager in Australia, after serving as managing director at 303 MullenLowe Sydney … Stagwell shop Assembly opened an office in India, and tapped Anish Daniel to run its operations in Bangalore; he was most recently gm of Wavemaker in India.

Direct quote

“You don’t want to measure yourself into a bad strategy, and you don’t want to measure yourself to death. Just because you can’t measure [in-store media] doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, right? Because for a long time, brands have invested in traditional shopper marketing, and there’s a lot of science, so you don’t want to discount that just because you can’t explicitly or instantly measure the impact.”

— Aisha Khan, executive director of global commerce client acceleration, GroupM, on the challenges and potential of in-store media.

Speed reading

• Digiday’s team comprised of Ronan Shields, Marty Swant and Seb Joseph continue to cover the trial of the century — Google’s antitrust trial at the hands of the U.S. Justice Department. Here’s their latest update after the first week of the trial.
• Seb Joseph also covered Coca-Cola’s somewhat surprising news it plans to dial up ad spending on the open web.
• And I looked into how media agencies are analyzing emotions detected in streaming content to contextually align their ads, using generative AI as a tool.