Ran the global PR campaign for Gamers8, the world's largest gaming and esports event, across four months and multiple phases.
Overview
In 2023, we created, managed, and ran the global PR campaign for Gamers8. The event was in its second year and looked to cement its place as the world’s largest gaming and esports event. The prize pool offered to the elite esports competitors totaled over $45 million, triple that of 2022.
Such a high-stakes event needed a detailed PR strategy in which we were to cover B2C and B2B areas with a global reach, managing our network of international partners in key regions and working with them to secure coverage with top media targets.
Project: Gamers8 2023
Client: Saudi Esports Federation
Platform: N/A
What We Did: Our team planned and actioned the global PR campaign for Gamers8, the world’s largest gaming and esports event, across four months and multiple phases in 2023.
Maintaining Authenticity and Ambition in Messaging
A critical element of the project was presenting and positioning the SEF as a leading force in the esports industry which began with highlighting the SEF’s investment in the industry and its mission to advance the future of esports through the Gamers8 Club Awards.
This ambitious initiative was the first press release we sent, an innovative new format that uses a points-based system to reward esports clubs participating across multiple tournaments as opposed to entering just one.
Following this was the announcement of the musical lineup that Gamers8 attendees would be entertained by throughout the event, headlined by the iconic American pop-rock group Imagine Dragons and also featuring viral sensation Macklemore, influential hip-hop star Metro Boomin’ and dance music heavyweight Alan Walker.
The consistent use of terms like “Gaming Festival,” “Esports Festival,” “International tournaments,” and “elite of esports” during coverage at this phase of the project proved that the non-esports elements never overshadowed the primary focus of the tournaments, only complemented it, which was a key tactic in our messaging.
High Stakes Competiton and Highly Successful Results
Gamers8 hosted the elite of esports in a state-of-the-art, purpose-built venue at Boulevard Riyadh City. The venue saw a number of tournaments take place for us to keep the media in the loop, including esports staples like FIFA, Rocket League, and, of course, Dota2.
The latter was an area we singled out during the project preparation as the most important tournament of the whole Gamers8 season on which to focus.
The $15,000,000 prize pool was the largest prize pool of the Gamers8 season and the biggest ever outside DOTA The International.
The action did not disappoint, with the epic final won by Team Spirit, resulting in over 650 pieces of coverage and a potential reach of nearly 1.1 billion for just the Dota2 final alone, proving our decision to push Dota2 above the other titles right.
At every stage of the project, we were communicating with our international partners to manage the global reach of the campaign. This involved working with them to identify regional angles to maximize interest from regional media and furthering the commitment to penetrating these key territories through localized press releases and assets.
Working against the clock was a critical factor in this project, with so much of the news happening in real-time as tournaments crowned winners and saw newsworthy, viral moments that could never be planned or predicted in advance.
