Esports (also known as electronic sports, cybersports, competitive or professional video gaming) is an unusual type of sports that emerged with the invention of technology and has been rapidly developing since then. With the establishment of this type of entertainment in late 2000, with 380 million audiences, which is expected to grow up to 550 million in 2021. The gigantic revenue that the industry creates now exceeds $1 billion, which yearly attracts so many new players and sponsors.
The primary issue with the video gaming industry is its audience, which is prevalently young, with a median age of 17-24. Such a young player age is narrowing down the opportunities of the industry and lacks convincing visual campaigns for the more mature potential clients. The reason for the low involvement of adults is explained by the majority of their common points of view for video games not being a serious activity or one that may offer an income. Lack of interest by the older adults may convert into a prospective possibility for the cybersports corporations to increase profitability and generate various new services and products.
To guarantee the success of the visual program and correct outreach, we chose one of the most successful ESports corporations in the world, whose abilities in the industry are limitless – Riot Games. The fact that the company’s debut game became the most PC videogame in history proves the dedication and qualitative attitude to the work. Riot Games has a clear vision of the current industry’s state and will be highly interested in attracting more players to their outreach. The company is accountable for organizing large tournaments based on their most prosperous game League of Legends, inviting millions of participants and spectators. Therefore, an additional opportunity to design games, create special coaching programs and tournaments for the 30-50 age group is a potentially prosperous initiative. Thus, as a result of collaborative cooperation, the visual campaign will achieve its primary goal. At the same time, Riot Games will widen its audience and gain an opportunity to increase its position in the global market.
Now that the primary problem and the sponsor are identified, it is essential to give a more detailed picture of the campaign’s goal and target audience. The target audience for the Esports visual campaign is a segment of adults 30-50 years’ old who are not familiar with or have never tried video games. The reason for choosing this age group is the research and discovery of its extremely low engagement in the cybersports industry compared to its general audience. Moreover, a high percentage of adult’s express negative attitudes towards the Egames, based on the impression that it is a pointless consumption of free time. However, such an attitude only creates more challenging opportunities to convince the targeted segment and convert them to start playing video games professionally. The high relevance of the target audience issue also creates barriers connected to their age. Older adults are more intricate to influence, due to more experience and scrupulosity, when It comes to adapting to new things. Thus, despite such a barrier, this target audience has a high potential to bring significant revenue for cybersports and develop a new generation of gamers. Talking about the behavior that the campaign is expected to achieve, there are several primary goals that can be outlined. The visual campaign’s ultimate purpose is to change the older audience’s attitude toward the Esports industry and convince them to become a regular competitor and client. As a result of the successful implementation of the advertisement, the industry will gain a new segment of players with high financial capabilities, which will significantly increase the income from the whole industry and accelerate its development. In relation to Riot Games, an opportunity to widen the influence circle can only present benefits, even with the need for significant investments. Remaining static for a corporation in the industry that changes with each day is a threat to become irrelevant and lose the market positions, therefore seeking improvement opportunities is vital for Riot Games, which our visual campaign offers. Creating a specific cybersport culture of people 30-50 age-old is a perspective opportunity for the further advancement of Riot Games, and subsequently, the Esports industry. An opportunity for additional revenue for the incoming players is another motivator for the targeted audience to try out Esports. The campaign is aimed to interest the chosen segment at first; however, the long term goal is to not only make them profitable for the industry but also to be of use for them. Such a new income channel is a prospective way to profit from those just entering the Egames, especially when their financial status highly exceeds those of average aged players.
Putting out a visual advertisement on the right platforms ensures the majority of the success. Firstly, the advertisement on social media was chosen as the main path. Egames are directly connected to the digital world; therefore, the selected segment must be somehow familiar with the tech. The next step is to analyze where the prevalence of mature adults 30-50 years old spend their time when it comes to social media. According to the pew research center, 87% and 79% of adults aged 30 to 49 use YouTube Facebook, respectively, therefore becoming the most prevalent and effective communication channels. YouTube is a global platform that allows connecting people of all ethnicities, ages, beliefs, and hobbies; hence, it is evident that realizing a visual campaign on YouTube would become a strong tool in pursuing the principal goal of the campaign. The statistics numbers confirm that the effectiveness of using YouTube as the primary communication channel. Moreover, social media creates many tools for advertisers to correctly set up and implement the campaign. When it comes to Facebook, the developers’ opportunities for promoting products or services are limitless. The platform offers a wide variety of features and detailed tools for the advertisement to act as effectively as possible, ensuring cheap and numerous conversions. The research results that state a wide use of Facebook by this audience create many possibilities of testing and setting up ads to reach the goal.
It is vital to mention the benefits that the audience will receive due to the visual campaign. Attempting to be in touch with new technology is not always easy for mature people as it is for teenagers and kids. A lifespan theory confirms that adults desire to mesh with the environment or change it up to them to control it. Therefore, an interest in the latest technology, including Esports, will satisfy people’s adaptation model to the current environment to comfortably function and continue to pursue their goals. The mid-life crisis is also a widely pervasive notion among people of the targeted group. Acquiring a new hobby such as cybersport may become a trigger to end a “midlife crisis” in various ways related to the younger audience and allows people to go out of their comfort zone. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on a new car, it is worth thinking about starting to get involved in Egames. Ultimately, with a gradual cybersport expansion, more career opportunities become available to its players. With timely training and certain investing, it may become a new job that will bring a profit much bigger than their previous jobs.
As it is a visual campaign, it is essential to develop related visualization that will immediately attract the audience. On the slide, you may see the first image, which directly outlines the campaign’s target audience, which is people of 30-50 years old. Additionally, the desired behavior is displayed, as well as the mention of a sponsor. The direct relation to the segment of players that is wished to be converted increases the chances for the photo’s success. Moreover, the text is also an essential part of the advertisement, meant to immediately intrigue the viewer to click the ad, which, in my opinion, this image does. The font used for this particular visualization is immediately associated with computer games, making a slight hint on what to expect; however, it does not directly state the result of the conversion. With intriguing and slightly vague messages, many campaigns become more successful in their product promotion. All the colors match each other and seem consistent throughout the whole image.
The next image that will be used for the visual campaign is directly related to advertising Egames coaching for the targeted audience; Its main goal is to emphasize that with cybersport coaching, every amateur player has high chances of becoming a triumphant player. Moreover, the athlete displayed in the photo can be assumed to be relating to the target audience. There are various text options that may be put under the photo, one of which is “The new era of coaching,” and may briefly explain the message for clicking the advertising. The image relates to the audience because It shows that any age may conquer Esports, as it is always open to offer help to both amateurs for starting and professionals for identifying the main strengths and weaknesses and building strategies to win as many tournaments. However, this image cannot be used on the people who are not aware of egames but will be sufficient for retargeting – people who have previously seen related advertisements but did not convert into active players. Such behavior is associated with the Contemplation stage of the Transtheoretical model.
This next image is a great attention grabber and may be used as a part of a visual campaign representing the message concept frequently used in the chosen communication channels. Targeted at the 30-50 audience, the visual attribute intriguingly tells a bold statement, which immediately attracts people. It is proven that middle-aged people are much easier to influence with such advertisements without a context than the younger audience, who is well-aware of many advertising techniques. Therefore, such bold statements may be a little exaggerated sufficiently work on the chosen segment and are perceived with interest, increasing chances of acting upon the desired action. A picture of a stadium translates the atmosphere of fame, big audience, and competition, while the text promises success to those who decide to join. Once again, this image relates to the coaching possibilities of the Esports that the sponsor Riot Games may offer. The colors and fonts are subtle and easy to read, without any distracting elements.
The image displayed must be targeted extremely carefully and detailed to cover people that express specific behavior on the internet that may be considered as a mid-life crisis. Despite the challenging task this image covers, the outcome of this visual advertisement might be one of the best, as it offers a solution to the problem, emphasizing the value of a person with the message it conveys. The ad with such an image induces hope to quickly resolve the existential problem, subsequently pushing a person to click on the advertisement. Therefore, the image directly relates to the message concept, aimed at the wanted target audience of 30-50 years old. Moreover, it contains the logo of the sponsor’s game, which will satisfy the sponsor as it also promotes their product. Hence, the content may be placed in the chosen channels with the content related to the theme of a mid-life crisis, consequently becoming a relating content for the users, increasing the likelihood of converting the potential clients into active gamers.
This image can serve as a standard picture for sponsoring the leading video games created by the sponsor, which will become the primary platform that the older adults will be directed to. The name of the game infuses a sense of intrigue and challenge. Moreover, without a context, it interests the viewer and makes them want to click on the advertisement. For additional context, some headlines may be added, for instance, “Tired of the mundane 9-5? Become a new world hero with…”. Once again, the 30-50 audience is more manageable to influence due to their lower internet intelligence, which is why such bold statements are okay to use. Besides, including an image with the sponsor’s main game is essential for the campaign. The company must be recognized and acknowledged since Riot Games are the project’s primary investors, and their company is highly interested in increasing the awareness and widening the players’ database.
The final image is one of the best visual advertising assets as it has all constituents needed for attracting the target audience. First of all, it represents the 30-50 segment, which will hold the attention of the ad viewer. Secondly, the man is a participant in an Esports tournament, meaning that he has trained to be highly successful in this industry, which adheres to the behavior that we set to achieve. And lastly, the daring phrase is a great asset to use in advertising. Using this photo for the Esports advertising campaign would expect to make numerous conversions and attract a large audience to this industry. However, analytically, this photo may be expected to convert mostly males, as females rarely react to the advertisement that includes any attributes of the Esports industry. The overall goal of these images is to make a viewer question and wonder what is behind it, therefore, proceeding to click further on the website. Thus, the next ste[ for a successful implementation of this visual campaign would be designing a correct website page to influence people who clicked to act on the next step.
Infographics are crucial to the visual campaigns as it makes dull numbers and facts comprehend easily. Moreover, data visualization provides necessary information about the company or products in a story by giving quick and comprehensible data points. The infographic displayed on the screen is an overview of the chosen communication channels, including their prevalence among the targeted audience. You may see the percentage between the use of YouTube and Facebook among the segmented audience, which served as a primary reason for choosing it. The next sections provide primary arguments for the justification of the effectiveness of using the preferred social media platforms in the promotion of the Esports industry to the people of 30-50 age.
The displayed infographic presents the total overview of the Egames industry in relation to the preferred target audience, as well as general facts that can give a person a general impression of how rapidly cybersports develops. The first section provides public data on the average players’ age, stating that there is a lack of older players in the industry, which further justifies the high profitability of video gaming tournament by presenting the current revenue. The second section talks about the central issues of older players inside the Esports, which the visual campaign is aimed to partially or fully resolve. To provide evidence for how the targeted audience would benefit from picking up a new hobby in the face of cybersports, several arguments are outlined in the third section. To further interest the sponsor, I included a section with advantages that the industry is expected to acquire after adding the 30-50 age-old players to their database. Therefore, this infographic is a comprehensive overview of not only the industry itself but also the benefits for both players and sponsors.