Manila, Philippines – Tier One Entertainment, Philippine-headquartered esports talent agency for SEA, has landed a major partnership with media investment company GroupM with an aim to make advertising more inclusive in the esports industry, specifically to open up esports and gaming content to more mainstream brands.
GroupM owns some of the top agencies internationally, such as Mindshare, Mediacom, and Essence, and holds global FMCG brand accounts like P&G, Unilever, Nestle, and Colgate-Palmolive, and Pepsico. Through this partnership, both GroupM and Tier One look to lead the way in extending advertising opportunities to more brands, and not just those that are esports-dedicated.
Despite its rise as a phenomenon, esports and gaming largely remain an endemic sponsor-dominated industry, especially in Southeast Asia. Tier One hopes that with GroupM’s considerable network and resources, they can work to change this and bring more eyes to the industry and their talents.
Tier One is the first and only esports and gaming company GroupM has partnered with in the Philippines, and with this, the company will be onboarded into GroupM’s content platform INCA which streamlines the selling and buying of Tier One’s commercial inventory.
When Tier One launched in the country, one of its core goals is to bridge the gap between gaming and mainstream. The company said that GroupM is the perfect partner to enable them to pursue that goal more actively than ever.
“It’s been a long-term goal of Tier One Entertainment to partner with GroupM. We are glad to have reached a point wherein our backend team can experience working with the best and brightest in the advertising industry. We look forward to a productive and meaningful working relationship as we bring esports and gaming to the forefront of mainstream advertising,” said Joanne Llavore, CCO of Tier One Entertainment.
Meanwhile, Laurent Goirand, head of digital at GroupM, commented, “Seeing the growing interest for e-sports in the Philippines, it is naturally becoming a new venue for our clients to reach out to new customers. With our partnership with Tier One, we are able to have access to premium content and a team of experts, which will be highly beneficial to our overall proposition. We are already starting to offer this new content to all our clients through INCA, our Content Performance solution.”
Tier One shared that the partnership comes at an opportune time, as it looks to expand to more countries in 2021 and in the future. GroupM is believed to be instrumental in mirroring the model of success that Tier One pioneered in the Philippines to other countries across the region, with the partnership expected to allow Tier One to scale up at an unprecedented rate.
Tier One’s CEO Tryke Gutierrez said, “While we have made great strides towards bringing gaming and esports to more mainstream audiences, the fact that a company like GroupM chose us as a partner is a real game-changer. This shows that the advertising industry is finally confident and believes in the power of esports in Southeast Asia.”
Haryana, India – India-based gaming content consulting and content distribution company ATechnos has recently launched its gaming as a service (GAAS) platform which aims to distribute gaming content for common users, and give brands an opportunity to gamify their brand campaigns.
The GAAS platform is called ‘GoGames.Run’ and offers a plethora of games for users of all ages, including augmented and virtual reality games with more realistic and intense action. To date, GoGames.Run has over 500 games across categories including action, arcade, casual, board, sports, mystery etc. In addition to this, many new games are added every month.
Apurv Modi, managing director and co-founder at ATechnos believes that cloud gaming is the future and is enabling a radical transformation in the media industry. He also added that they feel very proud that they are able to bring the next level of audience engagement on platforms that have seen massive growth amidst the pandemic.
“With the addition of instant gratifications, the integration can add tremendous value to any platform, whether they want to engage and retain the existing users or add new users. The integration also enables platforms to innovate and bring in revenue from advertisers. We are sure that GoGames.Run gaming platform will have a deep impact on audience consumption patterns,” Modi said.
In addition, ATechnos is also adding the following programs:
GoGames.Run Publisher Program can be integrated with the publisher portal in under 5 minutes time and can help publishers to increase user engagement on their portal with gamification.
GoGames.Run Developer Program allows any developer to develop their own games and launch on the GoGames.Run network and generate revenue.
GoGames.Run Gamification Program enables brands, OTTs, media companies, portals, and telecoms to quickly run various exciting campaigns around gaming which can result in increased user engagement and loyalty. Using ATechnos’ gamification programs, brands can generate huge shout in the market and increase their presence by manifold.
Rahul Jain, vice president for gaming at ATechnos, commented, “With GoGames.Run now available for all platforms including apps, websites, social media platforms and OTT, the window of opportunity for game developers also opens up. We understand the importance of direct-to-consumer access and being able to have a quick turnaround time for revenue generation. GoGames partnerships are truly a win-win-win situation for the platform, the developer, and us.”
Jakarta, Indonesia – To respond to the increase and significance of the gaming industry in Indonesia, e-commerce company Bukalapak has announced a partnership with itemku, an Indonesian-based online marketplace catered to the gaming industry.
As part of the commitment, both Bukalapak and itemku will work closely in creating greater reach and access for Indonesians in terms of video games, including distribution of products from itemku to gaming customers who are in the country’s rural areas.
In addition, Bukalapak and itemku will develop new projects in the near future to ascertain game accessibility in the country.
“Millions of Indonesians have used my items for years. However, we want to go beyond just making digital entertainment inclusive. I fully agree with Bukalapak’s vision to build an economy that is fair for all, and that’s why we decided to collaborate with them. We want to have a big impact on hundreds of millions of Indonesians, just as they have done. Along with the social impact, I hope this collaboration can bring rapid development in this industry,” Denis Kim, CEO of itemku, said.
Part of the reason the partnership has flourished is due to the increase of game players during the course of the global lockdowns brought by the pandemic. Verizon reports that mobile game usage rose 75% during the first phase of lockdown in 2020, compared to the period before COVID, and there were more than 2.3b mobile game downloads between March 5 and April 5, up 60% at the same time. the previous year period.
Furthermore, a large number of people want to know and try video games for the first time during the pandemic and many of them will continue to play games in the future. This prediction is strengthened by a survey conducted by Google and Savanta in May 2020 of 7,611 people.
For Willix Halim, chief operating officer at Bukalapak, one of their goals as an e-commerce platform has always been to help increase digital penetration in Indonesia, by helping to create a good digital ecosystem.
“I realize that the need for home entertainment has increased during the pandemic, and itemku is doing a great job of understanding those needs, I hope that with our shared strength, we can help catalyze the need for digital gaming in Indonesia, and make video games more accessible. by every community throughout Indonesia,” Halim stated.
Bukalapak has recently concluded its US$400m funding round, with Swiss investment bank UBS Group AG and Malaysian conglomerate Genting Berhad subsidiary Resorts World being the prime backers of the funding.
Singapore – Collab Asia, a content studio and talent network, has announced that it has signed a deal with Nintendo to allow its vast network of content creators to monetize their gameplays based from Nintendo Game Content, which in turn accelerates support for the production, distribution, and monetization of live game videos.
Through the monetization deal, Collab Asia content creators can monetize their Nintendo gameplay through streaming channels such as Facebook Game Streamer, Niconico Channel, OPENREC Creators Program, and Twitch Affiliate Program and Twitch Partner Program, as well as YouTube Partner Program, among others.
“As the premier digital media partner for creators, brands, and media platforms in Asia, we understand that people are consuming more content and creating more content than ever before across Asia. As part of this, we look forward to enabling our creators to responsibly create content using Nintendo’s unparalleled intellectual property, storied titles, and legendary characters,” said Eugene Choi, CEO and co-founder of Collab Asia.
The recently-inked deal follows after Collab Asia has recently opened its first office in Shenzhen, China. To date, the studio manages 4,000 video channels and social media accounts with 270 million loyal subscribers across leading platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Facebook.
Collab Asia has existing markets in Asia Pacific such as in Korea, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong SAR, and Singapore.
This month’s top stories are all about game-changing old practices and breaking stereotypes in the industry. A new agency has just launched a new proprietary tech that aims to bring more science to the practice of media planning, while a popular short-video platform moves beyond its popularized brand of entertainment to launch a pilot educational series.
Meanwhile, the world of gaming makes another comeback. Two companies have recently partnered to offer brands an inventory of a new type of advertising in the gaming world. An AI and data company has also offered a new solution to a marketplace that is of surging demand today – e-commerce; while this month also saw the appointment and elevation of one veteran in the area of loyalty marketing in APAC.
Rankings were sourced from Google Analytics from the period of 16 March to 15 April. Take a look.
More brands will be able to better engage with gamers around the world and get their hands on a relatively new type of brand placement in games – in-game advertising – as two platforms have partnered to offer the said type of inventory to advertisers in Africa, Asia, and CIS, as well as Europe, and MENA.
Anzu.io is a global in-game advertising platform, while Eskimi is a full-stack programmatic and data platform. What Anzu offers are real-life advertisements that fit natively into games, and Yaniv Rozencweig, the director of business operations at Anzu, said that it is looking for a demand-side platform (DSP) like Eskimi that has a strong and agile tech team that is able to “make adjustments” in order to tap into its supply.
MARKETECH APAC spoke to both Rozencweig and Monika Poškutė, the head of marketing at Eskimi, where both said that the partnership ultimately aims to solve the long-standing problem of intrusive ads.
“Our mindset is very similar [and] basically the same, we believe that ads should not be intrusive, and they should not be a big distraction in your life. You’re supposed to have your activities online for the game that you’re playing on your mobile phone, and it is the game that you’re enjoying, it’s entertainment, [so] suddenly receiving like a pop-up [ad] is a distraction, it’s intrusive,” said Poškutė.
They also said that the tie-up will be offering foremost the education to clients and brands on how to work around this unique type of advertising and how to best harness it to better connect to gamers which had already reached about 3 billion around the world.
“You can find various user segments in this big gamer audience in a non-intrusive way, and we believe that by educating our clients about this new opportunity, we are able to offer new channels, [and] new engagement rates, and I could even say probably more loyal user segments,” added Poškutė.
Singapore-based digital agency JOLT Digital has recently unveiled its new tech for media planning J-CAL, or which stands for J-Calculator, which aims to turn the practice of media planning on its head by bringing more science to advertisers’ processes through econometric modeling.
MARKETECH APAC spoke to the agency’s founder Sebastien Lepez, where he said that throughout his own experience in media planning, he found that most executives allocate media budget based on gut feel.
Lepez, a marketing veteran with over 13 years of experience in both the agency and client sides, shared that media planners usually use media metrics or the rate of likes, impressions, and views, and while, effective in its own way, still doesn’t integrate sales in the process.
“We allocate the optimal media budget to the channels we have selected. Our tool is able to tell us exactly how many percent should be invested into each of the channels,” he said.
In the development of J-CAL, five years’ worth of data across Southeast Asia was used to build econometric curves or what the agency calls response curves for each of the channels that are present on digital.
“J-CAL has taken nine months to develop and I think we have created a technology that is very unique and very robust. A lot of data, efforts, and thinking has gone into it. We truly believe that it is going to game-change media planning,” Lepez stated.
He further said, “Our industry is in need for a change and it’s been requested by clients for many years. After years [of] working at agencies and clients, I had time to observe the gaps and now I am able with JOLT and with J-CAL to fill these gaps.”
While TikTok is most popularly known as an entertainment platform, TikTok in Singapore aims to showcase that such is definitely the case and that the platform is far more reaching than just exciting dances and singing. With this, it launched last 31 March to 6 April its first educational series which has its pilot theme on careers on tech.
The first-ever #JobTok educational live stream series is a lineup of shows that aims to equip the youth aspiring for tech careers with knowledge of the jobs and skillsets of the future in the industry to help them to make more informed career decisions in life.
“We recognize the need to dispel the uncertainty among today’s job seekers and equip them with the relevant skills to be future-ready, so with that idea in mind, we decided to launch the first-ever ‘JobTok’ educational live series to equip all the users in the platform with the knowledge and the skill set of the future to allow them to make more informed career decisions,” said Doreen Tan, user & content operations manager at TikTok Singapore, in an interview with MARKETECH APAC.
The platform has roped in women leaders in tech, tech executives from the government, and even its own engineers to shed light on some of the most burning questions of tech enthusiasts. Segments presented were ‘Adulting Advice from Young GovTechies’, ‘The Faces Behind TikTok live’, and ‘Women Leadership in Tech’.
‘Ultimately, what we are trying to do here is providing an insider look into the tech industry and to just spark greater interest among Singaporeans to enter this fast-growing industry,” added Tan.
Just recently, hospitality giant Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has consolidated and rebranded its Southeast Asia Pacific Rim (SEAPR) unit to now represent the whole Asia Pacific, and with this, it has elevated its former director for marketing and loyalty in SEAPRLynn Poh to now take the lead as the senior director for the hotel’s rewards program, Wyndham Rewards, in APAC.
MARKETECH APAC conversed with Poh to know more about what her first order of business will be as she takes on the role.
“My first order of business is integrating the marketing and loyalty teams in Asia Pacific, and plus, developing a strategic marketing plan for both digital and loyalty that will support the needs of our hotels across the region,” said Poh.
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is one of the biggest hospitality chains in the world with brands across upscale, midscale, and value segments. The APAC leg currently comprises over 1,500 hotels, and within the running quarter of the year alone, the region has announced new additions to its portfolio with a new property in India state Gujarat, and inaugural entries in Nepal and Cambodia.
With tight travel restrictions in the region still in place, how does Lynn plan to keep the rewards program on its feet when such depends on recurring bookings? She said it’s about leveraging digital channels and employing social media strategies that will keep the brand on consumers’ radar.
“We have seen positive news of travel bubbles coming out of certain destinations, so while we’re still very focused on integrated campaigns, we are also taking a sub-regional approach that’s tailored to market needs,” she shared.
“So I agree that bookings have not reached historic levels, but throughout the pandemic, Wyndham had been really present in social media and digital channels, and we’ve been driving this message of dreaming to travel again, reconnecting with family and friends, so really driving that top-of-mind awareness through our social media platforms,” she added.
Nabbing the top spot for this month of April is ADA, a company that uses deep data and AI capabilities to provide brands in Asia actionable marketing insights and brand and communication strategies. ADA garnered the highest readership for the month for its new e-commerce solution, which is an end-to-end offering for brands.
Speaking with MARKETECH APAC, Anurag Gupta, chief operating officer and chief of agency at ADA, said that what the company found was that while e-commerce is a booming industry in Southeast Asia, companies’ current solutions for online brands are very siloed.
“There are companies who are driving traffic to the e-commerce platforms or marketplace, then there are companies helping brands optimize the customer journey, then there are companies helping them do fulfillment, but nobody’s linking everything together,” Gupta said.
Hence, its launch of the new solution. The service is aimed at clients seeking comprehensive solutions to drive traffic, manage customer experience, optimize conversions throughout the funnel, and create engaging content on digital marketplaces as well as owned e-commerce sites.
Gupta said that even amid the increase in adoption of e-commerce, it is still seen as vanity and supplemental channel, where about 90% of sales are still dependent on offline purchases. With the new solution, ADA also aims to help companies understand that with the right direction and strategies, it can be a major channel for a brand.
Gupta cites one of the pitfalls for brands on the customer journey, taking into example cosmetics brands, where most of the time, customers will come searching on the internet to look for different types, for example, of lipsticks. If brands don’t take the difference of keywords in search seriously, a seemingly small detail would be a big problem on online presence, he said.
“[E-commerce] is a major part of the digital ecosystem. We see that companies are going to accelerate their e-commerce investments, it is going to be a much bigger channel in their portfolio, and hence, we want to prepare companies how to manage this,” stated Gupta.
This is in collaboration with Malaysia-based media company The Full Frontal.
London, United Kingdom – In-game advertising company Bidstack recently announced a new partner network with media partner platform Httpool and elite esports service agency GIMA Esports in the hopes of broadening up relationships to more brands and media platforms internationally.
Httpool’s partnership will mean an exclusive commercial focus on the Indian market. With a diverse portfolio of media partners and brands internationally, Bidstack aims at localizing its market expansion within the Indian esports culture.
On the other hand, GIMA Esports’ inclusion means a more diversified launch platform for Bidstack, offering services such as media partnerships, influencer, and brand activation. The esports agency has been responsible for maintaining esport relationships across US and MENA, with brands such as Twitch, Riot Games, and Hyper X joining their growing client portfolio.
Since the global pandemic started, advertisers have since then shifted their focus to gaming and esports channels as a viable marketing stream. With this, Bidstack hopes that such partner networks would help marketers create brand-safe and relevant ad campaigns within the esports culture.
“Shifts in media consumption globally are making it harder for advertisers to reach their audiences and there has been a significant industry-wide discussion about how these changes could be here to stay,” said Yasin Dabhelia, Bidstack’s global demand partnerships director.
As for Httpool, Amit Gupta, managing partner for Httpool India stated, “Marketers today are increasingly focussing on gaming and esports as a marketing channel. This has become even more obvious during lockdowns. And so, partnering with Bidstack has come at the right time. It creates an opportunity for us to actively participate in the discussion around how to activate the gaming space in the most authentic way and figure out the best ways to talk to gamers”.
HANOI, Vietnam — According to recent statistics from App Annie, an app data and analysis services platform, during the first 11 weeks of 2020, the number of mobile game app downloads before and after the 2020 Tet holiday in Vietnam increased by 40%. This is in contrast with the statistics from 2019, in which the number of downloads did not show any upward trend in the same period.
The impact of COVID-19 on the gaming industry
Recent research from Adsota shows that before the COVID-19 outbreak, gaming was projected to grow strongly this year with the number of active players expected to rise from 51% in 2018 to 71% in 2019. Another noticeable trend is how the increase in terms of graphics quality and user experience has become a key factor in expanding the gaming market during the last few years, especially in 2019.
In 2020, the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak has led to social distancing and quarantine policies being applied in many countries including Vietnam. The daily lives of consumers are going through massive changes with most activities taking place at home. Gaming suddenly became a safe and cost-effective means of entertainment. Along with social media, gaming has also become a perfect solution to keep everyone entertained and connected as the outside world has no longer been capable of doing so.
In addition, a variety of game genres available in Vietnam has brought about a diverse experience to players which have kept them from becoming bored even when staying at home for a long time. This very reason is an important factor for the significant increase in the number of players and the amount of time they spend playing games during the COVID-19 era.
Overall, the gaming industry has been a bright spot even in the worst periods of the pandemic. However, challenges remain for game publishers. “The global impact of the COVID-19 outbreak has caused temporary suspensions from production partners from China, Korea, and Japan. Therefore, many projects from domestic publishers are unable to release as planned. Even on-air products are affected due to delays in technical support, while new products being postponed make companies unable to generate revenues for other activities such as marketing and communications,” stated Ms. Trang Vu, COO of GAMOTA.
Opportunities remain for Vietnamese Game Publishers
There are still more upsides for game publishers in Vietnam during the impact of COVID-19. The amount of new releases in the first quarter of 2020 has been slightly less than that of 2019. However, 2020 still has many potential opportunities to grow for the gaming industry especially when an increasing number of global players are entering the market and actively looking for credible local partners to release highly invested game products.
In the post-pandemic period, the market has seen the appearances of various new products in different genres such as Call of Duty, Vo Lam Truyen Ky 2, The Gioi Hoan My, Tuyet Dai Song Tu, Vua Bong Da 2020, Tuyet Dinh Tam Quoc Mobile, Ngao Kiem 3D, etc.
“Follow-up” services can also expect an upward trend along with new products being released. Live streaming is a favorite activity in which game streamers play the same roles as influencers. Recently Nam Blue, a streamer from OTA Network, set a record of 137,000 concurrent views with the number of followers on his channels reaching 2,000,000. To date, Nam Blue is the only streamer to have reached this record on Facebook Gaming.
“Basically, gaming is an industry that might be less affected by the COVID-19 pandemic compared with other businesses. Recent market reports also show that the number of players in Vietnam went up by 30% after the emergence of COVID-19. As other means of entertainment, such as movies, sports, and outdoor entertainment, are only being re-open recently with careful health measures, gaming remains a safe means of entertainment, so overall revenue of the industry is rising steadily, though not too much because incomes of consumers are not yet fully recovered due to the outbreak impact on the economic,” Ms. Trang Vu – GAMOTA’s CEO stated.
Nevertheless, the ability to capitalize on opportunities in the market after the peak of COVID-19 is going to depend on the publishers themselves. Building a large and loyal community of gamers is the stepping stone for domestic players. Product development in terms of both quality and quantity is going to help game publishers in Vietnam make the leap in the final half of 2020. The gaming industry will expect to have continuous but steady growth after the COVID-19 period.
We use cookies to improve your experience and to analyse our traffic. To find out more, please click here. By continuing to use our website, you accept our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
