You might be surprised to learn that the popular phrase ‘Content is King’ was coined by Bill Gates, whose essay titled “Content is King” was published on Microsoft’s website in 1996. Soon after with the zephyr of content creation, the title became the slogan of every content creator around the world. No one ever thought how the power of digital content would be. Creating relatable content to reach out to millions of audiences has become a trend for industries. Today because of the affordability of smartphones and cheap date rates every person has become the content consumer.
Every business and industry is pushing their content game to reach out to these expanded audiences. In fact, every brand’s focus is to become the word of mouth of the common people. Like any other industry, gaming, esports and skill based games are counting on content vastly.
First up brands like Rummy Circle ropes in ambassadors of known Indian personalities to create relatable video campaigns for both television and digital platforms to attract audiences to play their game. In June 2020, Games24x7 partnered with Bollywood artists, Aparshakti Khurana, Varun Sharma, Vir Das, and Manjot Singh for the campaign in the North Indian market. In the same spirit, the company also associated with artists Danish Sait and Sathish Muthukrishnan for Karnataka and Tamil Nadu regions. They created a chain of content for their campaign which are relatable and eye grabbing for the audience. Here is a glimpse of it:
Speaking about the new digital influencer campaign, Games24x7 director brand and marketing strategy Avik Das Kanungo said, “We are delighted to associate with Bollywood celebrities and popular influencers for the slice-of-life depiction of enthusiastic online rummy players in the campaign.”
Fantasy sports platforms also follow the same rule as many rope in cricket and sports personalities for their branded campaigns. Apart from that, when all sporting events were cancelled or postponed due to the pandemic, fantasy sports platforms focused more on creating content. Amidst no sporting action on-field, FanCode, a multi-sport aggregator platform, by Dream Sports’ (parent company of fantasy sports platform Dream11) has launched a fun chat show with renowned sports personalities – #LockDownButNotOut. It was followed by the launch of Unlock Sports, a fun, candid, chat show featuring sports personalities across the globe in June 2020.
The theory that relatable content attracts more audience has been followed by various brands of the game of skill fraternity. Earlier in October 2020, Poker Sports League CEO and co-founder Pranav Bagai shared that the content on Poker is on the rise as soon as they hosted Virtual Poker League which was streamed live for the audience on their official Youtube channel. He told to us, “Since the world went digital, we had to find the model that works online as well.” He shared that they received commendable response for The Virtual Poker League, and such format will boost participation of people in the game further. Not just that, due to the streaming of live poker tournaments, people who were in the dark about the game will get the chance to understand the rules, earn skills by exploring the game and will be further interested to play the game.
Thirdly, the game of skill content could be found in the web series as Adda52Poker, a popular game of skill platform collaborated with TVF. In conversation with AnimationXpress, Adda52Poker CMO Krishnendu Guha shared, “Our partnership with TVF (The Viral Fever) under the channel TSP (The Screen Patti) was a three episodic part series association where Adda52 Poker became a part of the story under the popular series Baap Baap Hota Hai fame. This brand partnership had various passive and active integrations in the core content accompanied by social promotions that is. Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter banter between the brands and cast.”
The series episodes were launched in three parts on 20 February, 24 February and 28 February 2021; which starred Abhinav Anand as the son and Anant Singh Bhatu as the father. The series has crossed seven million views already. According to Guha, “The concept was that of upskilling for life with poker. Poker is a game that requires the presence of mind, astute strategy, and keeping a calm, level head throughout. It needs mindfulness and awareness of oneself and one’s actions. It is a brain game. What really matters is becoming genuinely skilled through consistent practice and disciplined effort. Here the fun banter between son and father leads to an interesting plot where we establish that playing poker enhances life skills.”
With this it can be understood that the content of the game of skill fraternity is evolving at lightspeed from live streaming to web series to branded videos. If the focus on creating related content for targeted audiences continues, it seems to expand even further in no time!
