Digiday Gaming Advertising Forum

Let’s kick-off the forum with a state of the industry and some opening remarks.

Let’s talk about all things live streaming. In this session, a Twitch executive will take us through a multitude of topics including the brand’s content evolution, audience make-up, covid-19 impact as well as the platform’s origin story and more recent growth.

Millennials spend more time gaming than almost any other demographic, but it’s not just their passion for gaming that makes millennial gamers so unique. As the first generation to grow up playing, they have a strong emotional relationship with gaming and affinity for long-standing gaming franchises. Learn why this connection, coupled with the purchasing power of a high disposable income, makes millennial gamers one of the most valuable audience groups for brands.

In this session, head of e-sports at BMW, Pia Schoerner will take us through a case study about how BMW has approached the gaming and e-sports sphere including the brand’s #UnitdInRivalry iniative.

Mobile gaming is often overlooked by advertisers looking to reach a gaming audience. Mobile games not only have incredible audience crossover with the “standard” gaming channels like streaming, consoles, and PC, but they also have a broad reach beyond that audience to more than two-thirds of Americans. Many mobile games also have advertising built-in, and offer programmatic channels to your existing campaigns. We bet you’ve got one installed on your phone right now.

As both esports and e-commerce soared to new levels in 2020, brands were uniquely positioned to connect with gaming enthusiasts in new, creative ways. For Mountain Dew Game Fuel, that meant launching and testing a direct-to-gamer site, offering a one-stop-shop for all Game Fuel products, while unlocking a hub of new entertainment and rewards. In this session, Paul Mascali, head of gaming and esports at PepsiCo, will highlight how gaming and esports partnerships help fuel the new D2C offering, including best practices for reimagining how brands can level up gamers’ experiences today.

Over 2.6 Billion people worldwide play mobile games – but biases and preconceived notions around “gamers” persist. In this first look at findings from joint ironSource/Digiday research, we will share a preview of insights that reveal the depth of diversity among mobile gamers, the attitudes towards in-game advertising, and the gaps between the audience and media buyers’ perceptions.

In this session, Rachel Hoagland, vp of gaming, e-sports, and partnerships at the NFL will take us through the genesis of the NFL’s involvement in e-sports, what the brand is working on currently, and what the future is for the brand in this space.

The gaming audience is the mainstream audience now. CPG, entertainment, and finance brands are finding meaningful new engagement with core “non-traditional” gaming audiences across devices and screens. How should a brand or agency marketer be visualizing the value of in-app/rewarded video as part of a comprehensive programmatic strategy? What are the new developments across campaign strategy, brand safety and identity that can make under-utilized formats a key driver of omnichannel success? Join Joe Lige, VP of Mobile at PubMatic, as he takes you through new approaches and best practices to help you up your mobile in-app video game and build greater brand engagement. 

For advertisers, the billions of people gaming on personal devices are impossible to ignore. They’re also hard to reach. While gaming holds a similar proportion of our attention as social media does, a comparatively immature ecosystem means it attracts a fraction of the advertising dollars. Admix’ Sam Huber unpacks the infrastructure that will enable brands to follow the attention economy to gaming with confidence, catalyzing the next key media channel.

Let’s listen to the key takeaways from the day’s worth of content.