#MarketingEventsAwards 2021 highlight: *SCAPE finds a pathway to success

*SCAPE and Twitch kick-started a collaboration to grow and support both new and experienced streamers in Singapore. As a result, Zenway Productions was also brought on board as programme partner for Pathway, which focuses on local youth development in content creation and live-streaming. 

The local game-streaming community is small, young and fragmented. There are also many up-and-coming streamers who utilise Twitch to stream their daily lives. However, many are finding it difficult to grow and reach new audiences. 

Pathway was an eight-week masterclass programme featuring 10 curated speakers and 10 experienced and curated mentors who were Twitch streamers themselves. This started a journey for 30 mentees. However, due to COVID-19, *SCAPE and Zenway Productions had to keep social distancing restrictions in mind, and also adapt the way in which the masterclasses were conducted. 

Their quick thinking led them to win a slew of awards at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Marketing Events Awards 2021: gold for Best Use of Sponsorship/Partnership; and Best Government Sector/Non-Profit; silver for Best Use of Live Streaming, and Best Creative Element for an Event; bronze for Best Virtual Event (B2C); and finalist for Best Event on a Budget. They also walked away with one of the two coveted awards of the night – Event Agency of the Year 2021. 

Challenge 

Gaming is often viewed as a taboo subject, and children are typically brought up in an environment that dissuades them from gaming too seriously, let alone being a streamer. One of the key challenges *SCAPE and Zenway Productions faced was to be able to find youths who were not only keen to explore streaming as a career, but also have them learn from the best in the industry. 

Another challenge came when *SCAPE and Zenway Productions had to shift the Pathway programme online due to the heightened measures for COVID-19. Hence, Zenway Productions was tasked with three objectives: 

Establish a knowledge-sharing platform for aspiring streamers in Singapore to encourage transfer of knowledge within the community.

Offer youth streamers with an avenue to increase their public exposure.

Ensure that participants would be equipped with the right tools for success.

Strategy 

Based on the brief, Zenway Productions broke the project down into five main strategies. 

1. Designing a holistic programme

To ensure success, Zenway Productions identified a few core pillars that would need to be put in place for the pilot programme to work. 

A. An in-depth syllabus and weekly mentoring sessions.

B. Weekly masterclasses by industry experts worldwide.

C. Trackable milestones and reporting structure for KPIs.

D. Attractive loot crate to kick-start their streaming journey.

E. Ensuring sponsorship commitments by mentees were met.

This allowed the team to ensure the programme would be relevant, and able to impart the knowledge and skills for them to be a successful streamer. The sponsored loot crate also plays an extremely important role in giving them a real-life scenario of sponsorship management and commitment by actual KOLs. 

The team also broke down the syllabus into an eight-week programme to ensure the mentees had enough time to learn and grow. 

2. Working with industry greats and role models

It identified two groups of people – mentors and masterclass lecturers – to inspire and impart important skills and knowledge. Mentors were top local streamers who had different styles and expertise for mentees to pick and choose from, depending on their interests and style. 

Three mentees were tagged to one mentor during which they were guided, coached and checked in on their weekly tasks to ensure they submitted their reports on time. 

Meanwhile, the masterclass lecturers were comprised of industry experts, established global influencers, Twitch, as well as software and hardware experts to impart knowledge on more in-depth topics and skills required by streamers. 

3. Loot crate and sponsorship commitments

As the target audience for its programme were mostly new streamers, most of them did not have the equipment required to be a streamer. Hence, Zenway Productions worked with several companies that were compelled by the plan and agreed to provide equipment and software support to these mentees. 

The sponsorship also allowed *SCAPE to create real-life scenarios where the mentees needed to fulfil sponsorship requirements such as on-stream branding, unboxing videos and social media posts. 

4. Content curation and storytelling

While this programme might be relevant and beneficial to the mentees, it was also important for the content and sessions to be captured and documented into a content series on YouTube. The series was published weekly, showcasing the success stories of these budding streamers, offering more talking points and discussions by fans and friends. 

5. Maximising participation, exposure and outreach

During the course of the programme, all mentees were required to be extremely disciplined in maintaining streaming hours, social media postings, meeting sponsorship requirements and sharing the content series. This allowed *SCAPE to ensure high organic views, engagement and watch minutes. With mentors promoting their mentees, this also helped boost their following and fan base. 

Execution 

Promotions for Pathway ran from 26 October to 8 November while auditions took place from 9 to 22 November. The programme itself began on 5 December and ran until 23 January 2021 while the content series lasted from 9 December to 10 February this year. The execution plan was broken down into eight segments. 

1. Preparation

The team searched for 10 top streamers in Singapore for the eight-week programme and sourced for sponsorships for equipment and software. It also took the time to develop the programme syllabus and created a microsite and social media assets. *SCAPE and Zenway Productions also created a storyboard of a 10-episode YouTube series and sourced for equipment and manpower to capture the content and edit the footage. 

2. Audition and shortlist

During this stage, the team filtered and shortlisted the top 60 candidates from 140 submissions. It also took the time to prepare for physical interviews with proper COVID-19 safe-distancing measures and eventually selected the final 30 mentees for Pathway. 

3. Split teams

The 10 mentors reviewed all 30 videos from the mentees through Discord and took turns to draft their teams. However, there was a twist involved. Each mentor had two chances of denying another mentor from picking someone if there was an individual they liked. This turned into a mini game and ice breaker between the mentors. 

The draft day was recorded and post-produced into two episodes of the content series. The mentees then got to see it for the first time and reacted to how they actually got drafted, sparking curiosity and social media shares. 

4. Provide brief and loot crate

The total sponsorship value for Pathway was about SG$68,000, and the sponsors included Mecha, Creative, Omnidesk and Secretlab, among others. 

5. Training and masterclasses

Some topics covered by the masterclasses included a social media presence, building a community around the brand, a camera presence, the dos and don’ts of broadcasting, as well as streaming 101. 

6. Weekly review of performances and social postings

Mentors went through weekly logbooks and grading matrixes to ensure mentees were on track. Social postings by mentees and mentors were also tracked for engagement and reactions, while the Twitch channels of each mentee were tracked before and after the programme. 

7. Weekly release of YouTube series

Mentors and mentees were featured on the thumbnail art for each episode to ensure relevancy, and the titling of each episode was angled to spur interest within the youth and the gaming and streaming community. 

8. Graduation ceremony

Attendees and crews were staggered into five separate sessions to be compliant to recording requirements for COVID-19 and no inter-mingling was allowed during the recording session. A full-day live-stream event was held where mentors and mentees showcased all they had learnt in the masterclass programme, generating buzz on social media prior to their session as they promoted the stream throughout the day. 

Results 

A total of 140 auditions were submitted, surpassing its target of 100. There were also eight sponsors in total for Pathway. More than 15 articles were written focused on targeted local digital media which promoted the programme and its effectiveness to the community. This resulted in a PR value of over SG$300,000 garnering much traction in the digital space.