Intel launched their 12th Gen Intel CoreTM powered laptops, built for the benefit of PC gamers and the Gen Z audience. The two key challenges were the highly competitive landscape and hard to reach mobile gaming and streaming audience whose content takes precedence over PC streamers.

The video gaming landscape today is not just about playing. In fact, GenZ is more inclined to watching video game play online than playing it. This has birthed a unique phenomenon. The radius of influence of the young consumers is not far out, but in a very close and relatable proximity. Their influencers look just like them, pretty much their own age, sitting on the other side of the screen, simply streaming themselves playing their favourite video games hours at end. These gaming-based content creators are exerting a considerable amount of influence on what their loyal viewers watch, wear, and buy. However, even within the PC streaming community, the visibility of competitor processors was heavier through content partnership and sponsorship. Intel needed to find a way to connect to Gen Z and gamers alike.

StreamO (India’s first Live-Stream sponsorship bazaar where streamers meet Brands)mobilized the entire community of game creators across the length and breadth of India to actively identify and shortlist live streamers who could launch not only on their YouTube Live streams but also across their social media on Instagram and Discord.

Several steps were taken:

• Conducted surveys to identify potential live streamers and to collect technical and behavioral data from PC gamers.
• Introduced brand messaging for the release of 12th Gen Intel®️ CoreTM powered laptops in live streams of independent YouTubers on YouTube Live with a corresponding call to action in the chatbox.
• The brand messaging was in rich media video format that is unskippable, unblockable, and unstoppable in the form of an overlay in the streams of thousands of YouTube live streamers to promote the launch of 12th Gen Intel®️ CoreTM processors, creating hyper-viewability across YouTube.
• Social media campaigns - live streamers, and influencers promote the campaign across their social media on Instagram and Discord.

We activated a 'Streamers Hangout' event to engage with the community, boosting reach through interactive and engaging content that involves the audience in community-building activities. The audience got to hang out and play with their favourite Valorant streamers. As a result, all the streamers had a 41.8% boost in viewership during the event and increased interaction in the comments section.

The StreamO team successfully mobilized the gaming live streaming community to be part of the campaign, with more than 500 creators mobilised with over 300 streamers showing campaign ads in their live streams and social media each day.

•  100% of 600K+ live views of 15-second leaderboard artwork of Intel®️ CoreTM processors, delivered on live streams with a corresponding CTA in the chatbox to real human audiences over a 17-day period.
• Delivered a CTR > 1%, almost double the value for an average campaign as a result of activating a very niche but engaged audience through careful selection of streamers participating in the campaign.
• Estimated unique reach of about 250K comprising mostly of PC gaming enthusiasts.
• More than 500 streamers mobilized with over 300 streamers showing campaign ads in their live streams + social media each day.
• Creators from respected gaming titles such as GTA5 also participated in brand campaigns for the first time, thus broadening the audience demographic and reach of the Intel campaign

Anita Kotwani, CEO, Carat India said, “Our endeavour is to design media solutions for our clients keeping in mind the constantly evolving use of media and how we can help our partner brands stand out in this ever-changing media ecosystem. At Carat, we design solutions for our clients' consumers that are world-class, innovative and out of the box, solutions that are industry first, showcasing first mover advantage on usage of latest trends."