For Every Gamer: The Synergy, Value, & Future - Hanting Zhu

we have a nice change perspective now um we're gonna uh look move from game makers to brand builders as we have uh publicist groups hunting Zoo who's going to give us his view of the meaning media gaming space my my presidency is quite casual hey everyone uh just a quick introduction of who I am I uh I lead gaming and Esports for hopeless Publishers group Middle East we are the largest marketing agency Network in the region and today I think we've all heard quite a lot from our uh from my fellow speakers on the markets the the booming business and also all the different audiences so today I'm gonna have a bit of a different approach that's a bit more entertaining and also talking about the Synergy between all the touch points

and players in the industry so first you know a little bit of a street cred I have been a gamer for 25 years as you can see I'm a die-hard blizzard fan but also I played at some Asian Games some you know Pokemon back in the days on game boys and also um Call of Duty as well so obviously I love being a gamer and I I really proud myself in terms of being a gamer what I tell people that I'm a gamer I always think myself like this but I think there are a lot of people when I tell them that I'm a gamer they think of this guy maybe just with better outfit so um so there's definitely a bit of a stereotype with Gamers but I think in reality it's it's definitely more diverse than we think especially when I

saw this tick tock tick tock the other day a random mother in America accidentally entered a Candy Crush tournament not realizing what it was and now she's in the semi-finals this is an official tournament with a grand prize of 250 000 that's a lot of money I swear I am uninstalling Solitaire from my mom's iPad so I mean yeah when I saw this I was like um maybe I've been playing the wrong game this whole time um maybe I can get into Candy Crush as well but I think what this kind of tick tock made me think about is how diverse gamers are and how diverse the games are and also gaming needs are so um and I think that's something that we always often forget even as industry players and also people outside of the gaming industry of course we have casual and hardcore but we also play and we watch right um sometimes we focus a lot on the gameplay which is great but also a lot of times

we don't really have the time and luxury to play as much as we love to um so there's really a lot of things that we can do and leverage on in the entire gaming ecosystem uh sometimes it's on the plight play side sometimes is on the watch and engaged side um so this really kind of paint a picture of you know in the Mina region everyone is a gamer and there's a game for everyone whether you are a Casual Gamer or you are a more serious gamer there's always something to do there's always something to play there's always something to watch so this kind of um really expand our Horizon in terms of what we can do with the gaming ecosystem um especially really taking into this uh whole ecosystem into consideration it's not just about the games it's not just about influencers it's not just about the events it's all of it right at the end of the day it should be a holistic

experience and that's what as a what we as a group have been trying to drive which is essentially putting the consumer and the gamer in the center right because we're all Gamers we wanted to have a fun experience instead of just okay here's an episode of a game we wanted to leverage on things that Gamers actually matter and the things that actually Gamers can resonate on so you must think this guy is all talk no play so I'm gonna show some fun stuff one of our work this year is for KitKat next door we kind of elevated their gaming approach to something really unique to the brand and also leveraging on gamer insights which is uh the rage moments the frustrating moments um when you game um so the campaign is called don't break your game have a KitKat break enough

[Music] oh come on man [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music]

[Applause] one guys [Music] foreign [Music] so as you can see you know this is activated through a KitKat break Squad where we brought together uh four content creators across the region and to really kind of bring out that fun side of the brand and the lightheartedness of it um uh uh Market catalyzed at home hey don't you break your game have a kit kat a break

okay what color is Allah I bet because this campaign is leveraging on those rage moments so we built a kit where we had a controller to help Gamers to protect their controllers so when they when you throw it at the wall hopefully you won't break it um so obviously this is kind of a proof that you know how we can really bring it to life in terms of synergizing the whole ecosystem um especially whether it's for non-endemic brands or gaming Brands

there's a lot of things that we can do and they only the value increases exponentially when we can put them together and connect the dots which is obviously Public Access group is really good for um but you know that is what we have been doing but gaming is obviously just getting started with a new technology uh with a lot of different things that's happening um I'm very excited about the potential that the future holds and one of them that is very closely related to the future of gaming is oh Ai and aiki AI generative AI generative AI generative AI a-i-s-a-i-a-i-aia it uses AI to bring ai ai ai or AI foreign well Jokes Aside

with generative AI obviously there are a lot of things that the near future and the far future can hold for gaming so the most immediate stage is kind of uh General AI generated gaming games and gaming experiences based on human prompts so we've already seen some in examples in Roblox and then the stage after that would be Auto generation so um to a certain at a certain point the you know hopefully they will be smart enough to work on their own but not smart enough to overpower us as humans um and then imagine an involvement and environment that ever evolving as you play and the third stage will be kind of the integration with the wider digital ecosystem based on the algorithm and recommendations from your other digital points imagine like your loving cat

videos and then AI learned that and it generated a whole game based on cats right so there's a lot of uh excitement that the future holds and of course I cannot really end this presentation without talking about the Hot Topic that has came out a while back for copyright Reasons I'm just gonna call it perspective Max um of course you know the technology is not precisely new of course this iteration is very uh is very uh Cutting Edge but also wearables has been around for a long time um whether it's VR XR and also um uh even like classes that's much smaller than perspective per step perspective Max um there's a lot of really exciting opportunities but you know for now I'm just gonna leave it as interface content and experience which is always true for core gaming and also they will be having

other iterations in the XR space moving forward of course um you know the future nobody knows what's going to happen if anything is going to happen so if anything else I hope at least we'll have Candy Crush thank you fantastic oh sorry I think if you've finished slightly earlier there does anybody have any questions for hunting it's not oh do you have a question there's a question in the front row there can we get I might have to do it myself I might have to be my own glamorous assistant is this on hello hello let me come and find you gotta do everything here there you go hello hello my name is love I am organizing uh tournaments uh offline okay sorry can you put your mic oh yeah of course my name is Yoda slav

and I'm organizing Esports tournaments here okay and my question is uh could you share please some insights on how to attract and maintain strong sponsorship relationships for Esports tournaments and uh what are some key factors that sponsors look for such events [Music] first thing we always think about is kind of the right match between the brand and the Esports category because some of the brands are not the best match for Esports because either they're not really a competitive brand or their target audience is a bit different um or their marketing priority is a bit different so that's always the first um thing we always think about but there are also a lot of Brands who can really leverage on the Esports uh uh category so the next step we always do is to make sure we select the right tactics candidates and also mechanism and to form that partnership with

which is a great thing to do in the region because there's so many players in the region and so many different options which is great and the third step is making sure the partnership and content and all the outcome of this partnership is very authentic and organic because especially with non-endemic runs there's not necessarily a natural connection with the gaming world so we wanted to make sure you know similar to KitKat we wanted to make sure that connection is authentic both to the brand and also the Esports space thanks cool oh I think there's enough there we are Hunty hello I'm Vijay from my own we are an Australian company can you put the microphone yeah um representing ion an Australian company

and when we are talking about blending the brands into the gaming and Esports what are the key kpis you are looking into like because these are um like when we we are talking about immersive Solutions right and um obviously we are looking beyond the conventional methods right we have like and in the new era when we are blending the the brands as what you have shown the KitKat or maybe um this is obviously the example for the live streaming but let's say um also um if I'm taking an example of gaming the immersive experience of brand into the gaming or Esports what are the kpis you are looking into are you looking only into the awareness or tapping the new niece of Gamers right or is there a certain uh the performance stuffs you are also looking into like the maybe um the purchase intent or something else yeah for sure I think that's a great question because I think that's something that

um a lot of people are trying to figure out for us it's actually quite straightforward because leveraging our overall marketing experience we're kind of elevating gaming into a full funnel approach because gaming is essentially you know 10 different kind of marketing tactics wrote into one and it's very powerful and functional anywhere from you know the up funnel stuff like brand love brand DNA those are kpis that some brands are looking at but those ones are easier to see but harder to track but also you can have those more tangible results like engagement conversion things like that that are easier to track but harder to see right so for us because we have all these capabilities within the group and you know we're really standing on the shoulders of giants we in terms of kpi and results we can really just tackle the full funnel approach but you know to your point it depends on the brand right

and what what are we trying to achieve here so um sometimes it's just a portion of the funnel sometimes it's the full funnel but whatever it might be um we're here for that you anymore it's my mic off I've probably knocked my mic off hello I'll use this hello hello um any more questions no okay well thank you very much for that hunting thank you I am I am curious though I have to ask because I have I can't keep what's this oh okay I'm sure Mike I thought I thought it was some funky new technology that only existing to buy I thought I want one of those