#MarketingEventsAwards 2020 highlight: How Gariath Concepts brought esports sponsorship to brands' attention

Taking home the gold at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Marketing Events Awards is ELECTRONIC SPORTS AND GAMING SUMMIT (ESGS) 2019 and Gariath Concepts – Philippines. This was for the Best B2B Event: Exhibitions / Trade Shows category.

While esports is growing at an exponential rate, one of the many hindrances of esports growth is still the acceptance of brands - especially brands not endemic to video gaming. Esports and video gaming advocates have had a difficult time selling advertising space to brands because the advertising agencies and media buyers themselves have not fully grasped what esports is. As such, education has always been key to selling esports branding space to potential sponsors.

Challenge

For Gariath Concepts, as an esports event organiser, the difficulty with monetisation has always been trying to get more brands to understand esports so that they would sponsor esports events in the future.

Due to non-endemic brands lacking knowledge and information on how to enter the space, esports sponsorships in the Philippines are primarily driven by telecommunications companies and computer hardware brands.

Gariath Concepts is known for creating the Electronic Sports and Gaming Summit (ESGS). A yearly event every October, ESGS has grown from a convention with less than 10,000 attendees on its first iteration into a record breaking event in 2019. However, ESGS has always been primarily a consumer event, unlike its equivalent in the Taipei Game Show, Tokyo Game Show, and E3 in the USA.

Strategy

Led by some of the best esports advocates and pioneers in the Philippines, Gariath has always tried to educate brands and agencies on the intricacies and potential of the esports industry. Its VP for business development, Ralph Aligada has also worked with Unilever, PLDT Home and Smart Communications, and Mindshare Worldwide to consult on creating successful marketing and activation campaigns for esports.

However, talking about games and esports is one thing – experiencing the phenomenon is another. It is for this very reason that Gariath Concepts decided to open ESGS 2019’s doors to businesses and anyone who wanted to understand and experience the hype behind the biggest gaming event in the Philippines.

In 2019, Gariath Concepts decided to incorporate a “business day” in its schedule, with the primary goal of broadening its client base, in the hopes of getting them to sponsor esports and gaming tournaments or events in any manner after the event.

Gariath Concepts sent open invitations to major brands and multinationals – Universal Robina Corporation, Jack&Jill, Procter and Gamble, Unilever, and multiple media buying agencies, creative agencies, and advertising agencies.

Moreover, aside from access to all booths during business day, attendees are given free passes to observe the target market during all public days of ESGS 2019.

Execution

Set within the sprawling event halls of the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City, Philippines, ESGS Business Day featured all exhibitors of ESGS operating at 10% capacity on October 24, 2019. All booths were required to open their booths partially for early access to both media and business attendees, giving media unhindered access to shoot and interview brands inside their booths. For the business side attendees, this also meant a better understanding of games and how they become a cultural phenomenon.

These attendees were also given free entrance for the rest of the days open to the public, should they desire a direct look at the behavior of the Filipino gaming and esports audience. Business talks were held on the main stage.

Results

The final numbers the ESGS 2019 Business Day were encouraging with 348 unique business attendees tracked based on onsite registration confirmation by the Gariath Concepts staff. Furthermore, Gariath Concepts’ Business Development team’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, Zendesk Sell, was programmed to identify which leads came from ESGS Business Day. Based on 2020 data as of 31 August 2020, of the 348 unique businesses that attended ESGS 2019, 38 (or 10.9%) eventually entered into a form of sponsorship or partnership with Gariath Concepts in 2020.  These partnerships would be in the form of advertising for content, creation of white-label events, and partnerships involving marketing value/non-monetary deals.

A total of Php 6.1M in revenue would also be attributed to these new projects. With these results, it is clear that ESGS B2B helped out the Gariath Concepts in achieving its goal of broadening its client base to non-endemic brands.

Taking home the gold at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Marketing Event awards is ELECTRONIC SPORTS AND GAMING SUMMIT (ESGS) 2019 and Gariath Concepts – Philippines. This was for the Best B2B Event: Exhibitions / Trade Shows category.

While esports is growing at an exponential rate, one of the many hindrances of esports growth is still the acceptance of brands - especially brands not endemic to video gaming. Esports and video gaming advocates have had a difficult time selling advertising space to brands because the advertising agencies and media buyers themselves have not fully grasped what esports is. As such, education has always been key to selling esports branding space to potential sponsors.

Challenge

For Gariath Concepts, as an esports event organiser, the difficulty with monetisation has always been trying to get more brands to understand esports so that they would sponsor esports events in the future.

Due to non-endemic brands lacking knowledge and information on how to enter the space, esports sponsorships in the Philippines are primarily driven by telecommunications companies and computer hardware brands.

Gariath Concepts is known for creating the Electronic Sports and Gaming Summit (ESGS). A yearly event every October, ESGS has grown from a convention with less than 10,000 attendees on its first iteration into a record breaking event in 2019. However, ESGS has always been primarily a consumer event, unlike its equivalent in the Taipei Game Show, Tokyo Game Show, and E3 in the USA.

Strategy

Led by some of the best esports advocates and pioneers in the Philippines, Gariath has always tried to educate brands and agencies on the intricacies and potential of the esports industry. Its VP for business development, Ralph Aligada has also worked with Unilever, PLDT Home and Smart Communications, and Mindshare Worldwide to consult on creating successful marketing and activation campaigns for esports.

However, talking about games and esports is one thing – experiencing the phenomenon is another. It is for this very reason that Gariath Concepts decided to open ESGS 2019’s doors to businesses and anyone who wanted to understand and experience the hype behind the biggest gaming event in the Philippines.

In 2019, Gariath Concepts decided to incorporate a “business day” in its schedule, with the primary goal of broadening its client base, in the hopes of getting them to sponsor esports and gaming tournaments or events in any manner after the event.

Gariath Concepts sent open invitations to major brands and multinationals – Universal Robina Corporation, Jack&Jill, Procter and Gamble, Unilever, and multiple media buying agencies, creative agencies, and advertising agencies.

Moreover, aside from access to all booths during business day, attendees are given free passes to observe the target market during all public days of ESGS 2019.

Execution

Set within the sprawling event halls of the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City, Philippines, ESGS Business Day featured all exhibitors of ESGS operating at 10% capacity on October 24, 2019. All booths were required to open their booths partially for early access to both media and business attendees, giving media unhindered access to shoot and interview brands inside their booths. For the business side attendees, this also meant a better understanding of games and how they become a cultural phenomenon.

These attendees were also given free entrance for the rest of the days open to the public, should they desire a direct look at the behavior of the Filipino gaming and esports audience. Business talks were held on the main stage.

Results

The final numbers the ESGS 2019 Business Day were encouraging with 348 unique business attendees tracked based on onsite registration confirmation by the Gariath Concepts staff. Furthermore, Gariath Concepts’ Business Development team’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, Zendesk Sell, was programmed to identify which leads came from ESGS Business Day. Based on 2020 data as of 31 August 2020, of the 348 unique businesses that attended ESGS 2019, 38 (or 10.9%) eventually entered into a form of sponsorship or partnership with Gariath Concepts in 2020.  These partnerships would be in the form of advertising for content, creation of white-label events, and partnerships involving marketing value/non-monetary deals.

A total of Php 6.1M (approximately US$126,861) in revenue would also be attributed to these new projects. With these results, it is clear that ESGS B2B helped out the Gariath Concepts in achieving its goal of broadening its client base to non-endemic brands.

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