The past five years are just the five years of China’s e-sports has advanced by leaps and bounds, and it’s also The golden 5 years of growing into a national business card.
In 2017, the League of Legends World Finals came to China for the first time, and the finals landed in the National Stadium. Not only was it hard to find a ticket, but also Attracted the first sponsorship of luxury car company Mercedes-Benz, and laid the beginning of commercial prosperity.
One year later, RNG won the championship at the MSI Mid-season in Paris, France. Several official media issued congratulations. It has accelerated the development of e-sports in China from a niche to a public view. In the S8 finals of the same year, iG closed the FNC with 3:0 at home in South Korea, which once again caused a national sensation and also made LPL the crown of the world’s No.
In 2018, the Jakarta Asian Games, e-sports became the performance item of the top intercontinental games for the first time, and the Chinese team won two golds One silver, topped the e-sports gold medal list of the current event. At the same time, on the Sina Weibo topic “China Athletes Cheer List”, 6 e-sports players appeared in the top 10, the League of Legends professional player Jian Zhuo (ID:RNG.Uzi) even surpassed the swimming superstar Sun Yang to rank first.
The time has come to 2020. The League of Legends S10 Global Finals was successfully held offline at the Shanghai Pudong Football Stadium under the background of the epidemic. There were as many as 320 lottery ticket holders. 10,000, and the number of people who were able to successfully qualify for on-site viewing was only 6,312. Therefore, many outsiders joked that “S10 ticket lottery is far more difficult than buying a house or a car.”
In the upcoming 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, e-sports will take a step forward and become an official competition event, bringing the whole of China E-sports enthusiasts are all excited about it.
The official level has also released many favorable policies. The Ministry of Culture proposes to promote the development of new formats such as e-sports, the Beijing Municipal Government has introduced new policies to support the development of the e-sports industry and hold international e-sports competitions, while Shanghai is committed to building a global e-sports capital…
Accompanied by outstanding record and official endorsement, China’s e-sports market is advancing by leaps and bounds. As a world-renowned gaming, e-sports and mobile market data research and analysis company, NEWZOO’s “2020 Global E-sports Market Report” pointed out that China has surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest e-sports market, accounting for $385 million in the world 35% of total income.
The rapid development of e-sports and the fanatical pursuit of fan audiences directly ignited the fire of e-sports marketing.
How popular is e-sports marketing, and why is it so popular
2013, the first China League of Legends Professional League(hereinafter referred to as LPL), there is only one sponsor. By the end of the League of Legends summer competition last year, 12 competition areas around the world received a total of 62 brand sponsorships. Among them, LPL won a total of 14 sponsors, the most in each competition area.
This year, the number of LPL sponsors and sponsored categories hit a record high. On January 7, LPL officially announced the sponsorship system for the 2021 season. At that time, there were 15 brands. In addition to the familiar faces such as Mercedes-Benz, KFC, and OPPO, it also added TT Voice, Razer, Rescuer, and Hunter App.
On February 1, LPL separately announced the addition of an official partner, this time the technology brand TCL. But this is still not all, and the LPL may announce the names of new sponsors in the future.
Not only events, the commercialization of professional LPL teams is also advancing. As of March 10, 17 LPL teams have won 68 sponsors.
Not only LPL, but also the commercial development of other e-sports events, the same is true of sesame blossoms—
Although it was only born in 2016, the Pro League of Glory of the Kings(KPL for short)In just 2 seasons, revenue of over 100 million yuan; the Peace Elite Professional League created in 2019(PEL for short) 7 new sponsors were added this year, including well-known brands such as Buick, Qualcomm Snapdragon, and JD.com.
and insight into the overall situation, you will find that the smell of gunpowder between competing products is becoming more and more intense, and the e-sports event has become The new darling of the brand owner. For example, Mercedes-Benz is the chief partner of LPL, and BMW sponsored 5 top LPL teams in one go; LV appeared in the League of Legends World Finals (S-race for short) Gucci and BVLGARI immediately followed up; Suning and JD invested in/acquired e-sports teams respectively.
E-sports has become a new battleground for brand marketing.
The primary reason for brands grabbing e-sports marketing resources is that e-sports has a large number of young users.
How young is the e-sports crowd? According to the “2020 China E-sports Business Insights Report” released by Nielsen Sports and Tencent E-sports, the average age is 23.21 years old, and among them, 17-24 years old account for 61%, which is higher than the 23.66 years old of variety shows whose main characteristics are youth. It’s 0.45 years lower.
How big is the e-sports crowd? The answer given in the report is 400 million.
Not only that, the e-sports crowd is completely different from traditional sports, and does not lose the consumption willingness and philosophy of variety show users .
For example, just as fans in the fan circle are willing to give idol support, e-sports consumer groups are more willing to pay for their favorite e-sports IP.
E-sports media play plus e-sports “2020 E-sports Marketing White Paper” pointed out that in 2020, more than 40% Of e-sports users have purchased a brand’s products because a brand sponsored a favorite e-sports resource.
For example, e-sports crowds are more tolerant of commercials than variety show crowds.
According to the “2020 China E-sports Business Insight Report”, more than 89% of the e-sports population supports brands in e-sports More than 41% of the e-sports audience expressed their willingness to watch e-sports placement ads-much higher than the 30% of the variety show crowd.
Source: “2020 China E-sports Business Insight Report”
All these have contributed to the growing fire of e-sports marketing.
The storm of youth creates a feast for the rich
It can be seen that e-sports has become an indispensable part of the corporate brand rejuvenation strategy, whether it is a luxury Brands or luxury car brands, or brands in other industries, this is not the case.
In our past impressions, luxury or luxury car brands often stick to tradition in order to maintain a superior tone and attitude , Even cold and old-fashioned. However, in recent years, the younger generation of consumer groups has completely risen and become the main consumer group of various consumer goods, even luxury goods and luxury cars.
Bain Consulting’s “2019 Global Luxury Industry Research Report (Autumn Edition) shows, ” Millennials”(born in 1984-1995) contribute 35% of the total global luxury goods consumption. By 2025, it is expected to increase to 45%.
The rising young consumer power is driving the transformation of brand marketing strategy. More and more brand owners have entered the field of e-sports where young people gather, and the top e-sports IP represented by League of Legends events has become a feast for leading brands from all walks of life.
In 2019, LV reached a cooperation with the S9 League of Legends Global Finals. Its chairman Michael Burke said that as a luxury brand with a long history, LV often discourages young people with insufficient spending power. The main appeal of LV’s marketing this time is not to quickly obtain income conversion, but to establish contact with e-sports groups.
The same goes for luxury car brands.
Among traditional luxury car companies, BMW is known for its youngerShows that the average age of BMW 7 Series owners in China is only 38 years old. But even so, BMW still showed its determination to win e-sports-last year it sponsored 5 top teams in League of Legends events in one go.
As BMW’s old enemy, Mercedes-Benz acted earlier—it was named the “League of Legends” global finals in 2017. For the past three years, he has been the chief partner of LPL.
After sponsoring LPL at the beginning of this year, TCL again AWE(China Home Appliances and Consumer Electronics Expo) At the scene, officials announced that they would become a strategic partner of the EDG team, and at the same time included the top domestic e-sports events and teams.
(Chart: Wei Xue, Vice President of TCL Technology (left), and Vice President of Chaojing Group, President of EDG Manager Pan Yibin (right) exchanging gifts)
TCL is a senior player in sports marketing and has been committed to sticking to the brandLong-termism, promote brand rejuvenation strategy.
From 1994 Club A single match( Guangdong Hongyuan VS Shanghai Shenhua) sponsored, sponsored the Chinese women’s volleyball team during the low period in 1995, and established the TCL Langping Volleyball Foundation. After the launch of sports marketing, TCL has embraced the world’s top sports IPs, including CBA and China Men’s National Basketball Team, the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, FIBA International Basketball Federation, Football America’s Cup, Neymar, NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo, etc.
Through a global sports marketing system, TCL has established a brand image full of youth and vitality and a continuously updated young user Pool. Take his heavy-duty basketball as an example. The Penguin Think Tank’s “2018 China Basketball Industry White Paper” shows that in the two groups of young people under 20 and adults between 25-35 years old, the netizens who have feedback about their friends who like basketball the most, respectively About 52% and 40%, ranking first in all sports.
As mentioned earlier, the e-sports crowd is not only younger than the traditional sports crowd, but even younger than the variety show crowd. Therefore, in the face of such a field of young people, TCL hopes to use e-sports IP to identify and resonate with them in terms of values, attitudes, lifestyles, and hobbies.
Explore love, dare to fight and win
Successful sports marketing must combine the development stage and industry status of the company and plan a matching marketing path. It is not only necessary to win the battle in marketing, but also to go hand in hand with the development of the enterprise to create a win-win situation.
After nearly 40 years of development and 20 years of globalization, TCL currently ranks second in the world in terms of smart screen shipments 的身位. If you want to take a second look and complete a corner overtaking in a new field, you need to further seek resources that best match your status.
Looking at e-sports IP, LPL and EDG teams are undoubtedly matched-the former is China’s most mature and influential e-sports The latter is one of the “Three Royals” in the LPL League. It has won two LPL Spring Championships, three Summer Championships, and the Demacia Cup for five consecutive championships. It also won the LPL’s first League of Legends. The trophy of the mid-season championship is an honor.
For a long time in the past, e-sports are things that are not understood, but e-sports people Through a series of exciting victories, personally tore off the prejudice of the outside world, making e-sports become synonymous with youth, enthusiasm, hard work, breakthrough, and even national honor. Whether it’s the iG team climbing to the top of S8, or China’s e-sports bravely winning gold in the Asian Games, it’s all going to make people burst into blood.Patriotism is bursting. Even the official media have not hesitated to praise the former-the former was selected as the documentary of the most exciting moments in China in 2018 by People.com, and the latter was selected as the major event of 2018 by People’s Daily. And TCL’s brand core is precisely in line with the spiritual connotation demonstrated by e-sports over the years.
At the end of the last century, when everything was full of unknowns and there was no successful experience to refer to, TCL bravely went abroad , Expedition overseas. Today, the world’s second-largest industry status is the best proof of TCL’s adherence to globalization for more than two decades and the courage to lead the world.
Similarly, on the road of sports marketing, TCL also engraved the word “Dare” into the brand gene.
In 2009, both Chinese basketball and CBA were in a trough. The Chinese men’s basketball team defeated Iran with a huge disadvantage of 18 points in the final of the Tianjin Asian Championships, and the Chinese were angry. CBA faces the huge uncertainty of commercialization-Infront China, the exclusive operating organization of the league, has suffered losses year after year, and the executive team including the general manager and basketball director fluctuates.
As a last resort, Infront Headquarters in Switzerland invited Ma Guoli, the former director of CCTV Sports Center, to serve as President of Infront China. After the latter properly resolved the CBA TV signal production and persuaded CCTV to significantly increase the number of broadcasts, it found Wei Xue, the helm of the TCL brand, hoping that TCL could support the Chinese men’s basketball team and the CBA league.
Although there are great uncertainties, after doing a lot of brand market research, out of support for China’s basketball cause and Prejudged that sports marketing can bring a huge boost to the brand, Wei Xue finally made the decision to sponsor.
This is such a decision, which not only made a good story between TCL and China Basketball in the 10-year long-distance race, but CBA and TCL also joined hands. To advance together, both usher in the harvest season-CBA has lost consecutive years to season revenue of over 1.2 billion yuan, and the league revenue and total viewership both exceeded 1 billion; TCL’s revenue exceeded 100 billion in 2014 and became the first step in 2016. Chinese companies that have entered the 20 million (smart screen sales/year) club will have sales of 23.93 million branded smart screens in 2020.
(Chart: The first game of the CBA Finals in the 2018-19 season, the CBA company exclusively held a special session for TCL to “Hand in Hand for Ten Years to Break Forward” During the celebration, Yao Ming, Chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association and Chairman of CBA Company, presented Wei Xue with awards, and the two exchanged gifts)
When the epidemic has a serious impact on traditional sports events, it is difficult for the traditional sports population to watch matches or participate in activities on the spot, because The similarity of interests naturally transforms into the e-sports game population. E-sports relies on unique online advantages.The trend is bound to rise against the trend of the epidemic——The daily activity of the King of Glory during the 2020 Spring Festival breaks through 54 million to create a new peak is the best example — After that, based on the same “dare” spirit, When most traditional companies were still hesitant and wait-and-see about e-sports, Wei Xue led TCL to jump out of the extension line once again to seize this rare opportunity from traditional sports to e-sports marketing.
According to research findings, although the consumer groups of e-sports and traditional sports overlap, there is not much overlap. In less than two months, the two top e-sports IPs of LPL and EDG have been rapidly deployed. TCL has not only succeeded in e-sports marketing, but has also established a basketball(CBA League, Yi Jianlian Cup) and E-sports (LPL League, EDG team) are the two most popular, The most popular sports marketing barrier for young people holds the initiative to communicate with Generation Z.
E-sports marketing comes from sports marketing, but there are more innovative ways to play
Although e-sports almost accepts all the rules of traditional sports as a single order-for example, the commercialization model is based on media copyright, Commercial sponsorship, on-site tickets, and franchise merchandising authorization are the core. However, e-sports is based on online competition, which gives it unique advantages under the impact of the current epidemic. It also produces some differences from traditional sports marketing. Innovative gameplay.
At the 2018 League of Legends World Finals, sponsor KFC, in the image of the founder, Colonel KFC, launched a predictable The AI image of the game trend is “Colon KI”. However, because the predictions of “Colonel KI” always run counter to the results of the game, KFC pushed along and let the commentator Guan Zeyuan, who is known as “poisonous milk” partner, promote the “Twin Buckets” during the event, and finally put the “poisonous effect of Colonel KI”. The “Milk” persona is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and has gained a lot of attention and discussion on social media.
After sponsoring the LPL, TCL won the highlight moment after the LPL match in one fell swoop(Highlights) and the replay time of each sub-section of the game (Replay) two exclusive naming rights have also created Your own unique e-sports marketing imprint-when the game enters the highlight moment, the live signal will first flash flashes of all TCL products, and then the TCL smart screen will appear on the screen to carry the most exciting moments in the game ; Similarly, the replay moment of each game is also a wonderful moment of the match between the two sides brought by TCL. In this way, TCL products are not only strongly bound to the “high-light, wonderful and beautiful” game content, but also used by fans. The way to improve users’ awareness of the brand is worth studying and learning from the unconventional marketing method.
TCL also held an e-sports water friend competition( E-sports professional players and fans participated in a friendly match), invited EDG celebrity Zhao Zhiming (ID: Love Loli) and current EDG player Hope Personally lead the team, and play with the water friends in the game, and the gaming screen used is the world’s first Eye Comfort Display (LCD) The certified display shows its strength.
The top stream of card slot e-sports, customized exclusive rights, development of derivatives, holding water friend competitions, TCL’s entry into e-sports Come prepared. Left-handed IP and right-handed products, with solid marketing steps, quickly got together with young users. I can’t believe that this is a global intelligent technology company that is about to celebrate its 40th birthday.
However, all this has just begun, and I believe the good news is yet to come.
Conclusion
After twenty years of development, especially the promotion of performance, capital assistance, and policy support in recent years, As well as becoming the official endorsement of the official events of the Asian Games, e-sports is no longer a “non-doing business” in Internet cafes filled with the smell of smoke and sweat. It has become a kind of hard work, enterprising, dedication and business development. Elements of the spirit of the times and youth culture.
Because of this culture and the large and willing young group of consumers, e-sports has become a brand marketing competition. The “New World” to be rushed-the inventor of the car Mercedes-Benz ate the crab first, and the century-old luxury goods giants LV and Gucci immediately entered the game. The 40-year-old smart technology giant TCL also quickly entered, and more and more industry leaders no longer hesitate.
No one is always young, but someone is always young. For brands, not to go among young people, use young people’s language and methods to communicate with them, and then understand young people, how to talk about a long-lasting foundation and win the future?