The Streamer Awards was one of the biggest events this year for both creators and their communities in live streaming. Overall the production of the show was phenomenal, but the activations were just as intriguing.
Since live streaming is still a relatively new industry, it can be difficult trying to partner with an influencer and create memorable marketing campaigns, especially when the offering is outside of the gaming space. However, the activations that we saw during the Streamer Awards stood out compared to other activations we’ve seen in the past.
AT&T
AT&T was the premier sponsor for the red carpet interviews that occurred in the first 2 and a half hours of the broadcast. During the interviews AT&T’s logo would periodically be present on screen as an overlay, and would appear in the background of the interviews presented by all four of the hosts.
While this part of their activation didn’t generate a ton of engagement on Twitch, the exposure that AT&T was able to generate after the awards show was massive. Many influencers appeared on the red carpet to be interviewed, creating many memorable moments that could be repurposed for content on other social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and Tiktok. This not only allowed AT&T to generate impressions to QTCinderella’s community during the broadcast, AT&T’s logo became present in other influencers communities as well.
Fansly
Fansly’s activation during the Streamer Awards was intriguing. Although Twitch chat had mixed reactions to the adult social media site sponsoring the event, their activation strategy was well executed. Like most of the sponsors, Fansly implemented banner overlays during the broadcast, as well as showed advertisements between breaks during the Streamer Awards.
Advertising on Twitch has become a hot topic as of late, but the integration of the ad breaks almost made sense as an audience member. It was also re-assuring that the advertisements didn’t detract from the content; instead they allowed the program to transition smoothly between award presentations.
Fansly also did a great job of presenting their offering to the audience. Fansly’s platform allows Twitch users to seamlessly log into their website and see their favorite creators from Twitch if they also use Fansly. The most interesting part of the activation was how Fansly incentivized the audience to scan through a QR code instead of an extension. While the QR code created a barrier of entry for mobile viewers, those who were watching on desktop or their television were able to seamlessly scan the code on their device without clicking off of the broadcast.
KFC & Mountain Dew
The KFC Double Down activation was one of the biggest throughout the entire night. Although KFC didn’t participate in the red carpet event, they more than made up for it by presenting three awards back-to-back-to-back while adding a little twist on the show itself. The activation started with an advertisement featuring YouTube Gaming Streamer Ludwig Ahgren and Twitch streamer Nathan Stanz gambling with KFC’s new sandwich the Double Down.
After the advertisement, QTCinderella announced that for the next three awards, the winner would have the opportunity to either take a cash prize or double it and give it to the next award winner. If all three award winners pass on the prize, the audience would get a special reward.
After all three winners declined the cash prize, the audience won $50,000 worth of Double Down and Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning Combos that they could order from DoorDash. The offering was an innovative way of adding to the viewer experience during the award show. This moment generated the majority of KFC mentions with “!dew” being mentioned over over 1500 times during the broadcast.
Creating such a high quality advertisement was a major play for KFC. The video felt similar to the State Farm commercials we see with athletes like Chris Paul and Patrick Mahomes, however it was in a style that very much represented live streaming culture with the community being the centerpiece of the activation.
Nitro Stream Racing
Nitro Stream Racing also had a very successful activation. Nitro had their first sponsored segment where a representative of the company arrived on the red carpet unannounced while riding go-kart. This gave Nitro Racing a chance to introduce their new game to an audience of 300K viewers.
The real engagement however happened at 10:42 PM EST during the demonstration of the game. Nitro Stream Racing is developed by Captain.tv and offers viewers the ability to compete against each other live on stream. Utilizing this function, the development team decided to allow any viewers that used the !Play extension in QT’s Twitch chat to compete against each other in front of 465K people. Within 1 minute there were over 1100 mentions of !Play on QT’s Channel and by the time the race started over 2300 players had signed up for the race.
Spotify
Spotify made some classic activation strategies by utilizing on-screen and background banners, as well as call to actions throughout the broadcast. Spotify’s offering was the Official Streamer Awards playlist which included songs that were used during the show to excite viewers. They also announced their new Roblox world with live in-game concerts.
The playlist currently has +800 likes on Spotify showing that there is a large group of people who flocked over to spotify to save the songs they heard during the broadcast. Although Spotify saw good results, there could have been an opportunity to really showcase the playlists, Roblox world, and the Billboard in order to drive more engagement. If Spotify added some more appealing visuals to their activations during the award show, it would have created a more impactful moment for the audience to remember.
Starforge Systems
Starforge Systems is a PC company that was announced in 2022 as a joint venture between Twitch streamer Moistcr1tikal and Live Streaming Organization OTK. Starforge was the sponsor of the final award for the evening, the Creator of the Year award. The winner of the award was given a brand new Starforge PC along with one member in the audience.
Being connected to some of the biggest names and organizations on Twitch, Starforge has a pretty strong presence in the live streaming space. The company’s marketing is primarily directed by live streamers, and leveraging that insight the activities that they tend to do with streamers feel less intrusive to the broadcast than others.
Chess.com
Chess.com also partnered with the Streamer Awards by sponsoring the Best Chess Streamer Award. Chess.com is a website that allows anybody anywhere to play online chess, and has become very popular in live streaming in recent years. In January, Chess.com crashed after reaching their highest peak users ever, indicating that more people are playing chess now than ever before. However, this rise can be attributed to the rise of chess influencers like GMHikaru, BotezLive, GothamChess, and AnnaCramling, who were all nominated for the award.
Chess.com sponsoring the award was a great way to show support for the live streaming community that has pushed their website to even greater heights. It also gives viewers who have been looking to learn more about chess an introduction to their website.
Summary
Overall we believe that the reason why some of the activation felt very natural is because there was a fundamental understanding of live streaming culture that underlined these activations. The activations that performed the best either highlighted something from the Twitch community like a trend or a Streamer, or they expanded on the user’s experience during the broadcast, which is something that is unique to live streaming.
If you are looking to activate in the live streaming space, you should talk to our sales representatives to get you started:
