Dreamhack Moscow GSGE Case, Marketing and Recommendation Analysis

1. Brief Information
GSGE Season 1 finals were hold in Moscow under the franchise name of
Dreamhack in 2015 that gathered number of international players for option to
compete for the prize pool of 330K USD. It is clear that the show was focused on the
Russian audience with Russian player base being the largest in the world.

The troubling aspect that I have found was the extensive focus on the Russian
player base and disregard towards the international, English community. This can be
seen from the difference in the number of following through the number of social
medias with Russian VK holding 16.6 thousand followers exceed Youtube, Facebook
and Twitter following combined. Reddit also holds a high insignificance with
cosplayers receiving higher praise than the tournament winners themselves.

This absolutely doesnt mean that English stream and the organization for the
international audience was a failure, ABSOLUTELY NOT! It was very successful in its
own way. From the VODS and the interviews, it is clear that the venue was full of
people and it truly did look like a successful event.

2. Marketing
There can be many definitions for the marketing, however the end goal is always
the same, for the most number of people to have a positive/information knowledge
about your actions and whoever/whatever one presents; this includes events,
statements and others.
Instead of covering what actions marketing team of GS has taken, Id love to
cover how to effectively market.

Last year there was a survey on Reddit where the community was asked
question about themselves and this information was as close as I could find about
demographics of the game.

For the events in future it is important to have these type of information to

create a custom marketing campaign that would focus on the main targets. From
this point we can see that our main demographics are male in between the age of
18-25; there is still a significant segment of 14-17 and 25-30; however the 18-25
may lure those people too.
For this even I would of used the following channels and means of informing the
viewers about the event:

Online advertisement (paid, free & B2B)

Traditional advertisement (radio, TV, billboards and newspaper [all means
customized])
Peer-to-peer advertisement

3. Online advertisement
Paid
The online advertisement is something that has always been a very confusing
market. With the recent generation and technological availability of ad-blocker the
standard advertisement of billboards isnt something that should be perused. For
the Russian market it is obvious that there are number of website that can be
means of informing the viewers about the event that is happening near them. This
can be used with the possible custom-made content surround the scene. The
websites are very accepting if an organizer agrees to provide free journalist pass,
couple of interviews with the players/commentators/organizers. Websites like
prodota.ru has viewers staying on the website around 13 minutes, that is a very
significant amount of time for informative website; it is possible to provide websites
with high time content (videos and articles) on the site rate with short text based

content.

However for the websites with low time on site and viewership there is still an
option to provide exclusive content, that would be short video/articles based
content that would serve as form a teaser where the delegated person would
communicate with the media about personal, professional and event information.

Free
When it comes to free content, there can be interviews, AMAs and direct
connection with the viewers. Of course, the Reddit AMAs would be held on the
appropriate subreddit and there can be even done an event of 7 days of AMAs
starting from organizers, commentators and players. Free advertisement doesnt
have to be held on third party websites where it will be held on the companys own
social media website, however that would be discussed in the division section
further.

B2B
The B2B advertisement that I had in mind was the In-Client advertisement. This
would have to be agreed prior with Valve under the hook of development of eSports
and Dota 2 scene. Usually when the organizers provide serious enough motivation
and are proving themselves to be a supplementary to the cause Valve agrees on
cooperation. Unfortunately, I have not found if this information has been conveyed,
or if it possible to conduct such operation, however if it is and would have been
there would be substantially higher participation.

4. Traditional
Radio & TV, Billboards, Newspaper
Radio & TV advertisement may not seem to prove itself to be useful, since a lot
of people consider eSports to be nontraditional media sport, however thats not
true. With recent developments and Russia accepting eSports as a sport there can
be possibility of developing this topic even further. Till now lets focus how we could
of advertised the event even further. There is always obvious diminishing demand of
travel, the further the person from the even the less ones desire to attend it.
Hence the traditional advertisement should be chose carefully based around
Moscow, with roughly 1% desire to attendance decreased per each kilometer

needed to travel, please note this is assumed estimate with no backing statistics.
During the TV segments we can create a sponsored topics where the hosts will raise
controversial topics in order to gain hearers/viewers attention, something along the
most generic question of, Are video games a sport? or a better one, What to
expect if you are eSports player? The broadcast of such information through all
types of traditional media can be done with the hook at the end about the end
happening and that everyone interested in exploring such market can join the
event.
For the billboard there can be advertorial information provided in the universities
and surrounding the major Universities of Moscow, usually the university students
have a higher income and are independent with their spending and movement that
can prove to be a barrier to participate with the school students.

5. Peer-to-Peer
Peer-to-peer advertisement is the most efficient and in some cases can prove
itself to be the cheapest. The easiest way is to organize a giveaway throughout your
viewership that will provide prized of either gear or a personal prizes like a game
with their favorite pro player or signed copy, obviously there is also a giveaway of
event tickets. Doing such thing consistently is very important, such can be viewed
from the AndroidAuthority website where there is a weekly giveaway to gain more
and more attention. This is a form of cheap advertisement that AA does, where they
give away already reviewed and used phones.

My second proposition would be to split all channels into their own subdivision
and treat them as such, not as complete. Subdivision:

Social network division

News & Press division
Design and content division
Market research and commercial planning

6. Social Network Division

Social network division would include in between 2-3 people with knowledge of
all the games that are covered by the Game Show, they need to have at least
enough knowledge to create a stable and fluid communication with the followers
and potential followers.
When looking into the social networks of the GS it is obvious that the person
whos working with those platforms is putting high effort into sustaining those
communities; however yet again there is clear strategy of communication style. The
information is thrown at the user with no details, no real content nothing that will
catch an eye and make the person either share/retweet. These conditions apply
only to international S.N. website; whereas the Russian can be a prime example of
excellence where there are additional commentaries added to the content. The
division will focus on constantly working with Russian S.N. department on creating

content that would be appropriate for each viewer. There is obviously cultural
difference, hence there is a high demand of customizable content.

7. News & Press Division

News and Press division would include between 1-2 people in association with
the department leader for clear communication of the messages of the Game Show,
those people are demanded to have high communications skills and ability to
present themselves in highly etiquette manner. This division would be ambassadors
of the Game Show in the publics eye.
Watching the previous interviews from the organizers of the Dreamhack Moscow
Dota 2 Finals report, https://youtu.be/JcpoXTS3W9s?t=15m48s, Ive noticed that
Alixey showcases very casual based normative, however with intelligent business
points. Yet, we have to understand how Game Show organizers and upper/middle
management should present themselves.

8. Design and Content Division

The biggest reason for design and content division is to create the demanded
information to be communicated to the viewers. The team would include an
analysist who will create the content either it be video or text form based, journalist
who would provide interesting articles in video/text form based, editor who will
make all the content easy for the viewers to absorb and lastly a designer who will
make sure that all information is supplemented perfectly for viewers joy. People who
would participate in the design and content division dont have to be exclusive to
such division and can work part time for that division from other division of Game
Show.

9. Market Research and Commercial Planning

This division is the most important one! This group of people will include sales
and marketing division combined in one. The group of minimum three people should
supplement each other in styles of sale and market research. Their job would be to
research potential sponsors, potential competition, business development and
further financial sponsor planning for future events. This division would have
minimum quota that would need to be met within 3-month period. The first 2 month
of the division will be starting period where they be gather information and
experience to being.