Advertisers, for decades, have battled with the eternal challenges of predicting trends and finding ways to get the attention of teenagers and young adults — the group, if tapped, reaps benefits for decades to come. As if their varied tastes weren’t complex already, add smartphones, shorter attention spans, diverse interests, fluid borders and an array of apps to the mix. We’re all staring at a puzzle so layered that no one’s likely to have big answers any time soon.

But what we do have, is data. We know that the youngsters across the country have the world at their fingertips. They do work emails, videos for entertainment, college projects and updating social media — all at the same time. By 2022, India is expected to be the youngest country in the world with an average age of 29 years. Which means that the ones who tap the teenagers today, may perhaps continue to have their patronage when they are in their ripe spending years.

A massive community

But here’s the challenge. How do you get their attention amidst all that noise? The millennials are no longer coming to brands. They aren’t in grocery stores, reading bus signs or hoardings to make purchase decisions. Spending millions on traditional media is perhaps not feasible anymore. It’s time for brands to go to millions of screens, versus one large hoarding. Where, then, are these millennials? Many places, and most of them are online. Social media (Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram), Apps (Tinder, Buzzfeed, Spotify) and online communities where they meet like-minded and people from a similar age group.

The last bit is interesting, and the landscape for that has changed dramatically in the past five years. One of the fastest growing interest areas for younger millennials, aged between 15-25 years, has been e-sports. A massive community with huge money and cult following, e-sports and gaming enjoy a global audience of over 385 million millennials. And almost half of these are below 25 years of age. This target group is a gold mine for advertisers.

Sample these viewership numbers, for more insight: The 2017 NBA Finals — 24.5 million; IPL 10 (2017) Finals — 39.4 million; League of Legends World Championship Finals — 75.5 million.

In these numbers, a silent revolution is brewing, and many brands remain ignorant. If advertisers reach out to just the e-sports platforms, they potentially talk to 76 million people with high purchasing power, profoundly inclined towards technology, extremely loyal to brands and readily influenced by relevant, relatable marketing campaigns. It’s the reason that global giants have been pumping in big money into advertising in e-sports and gaming. Coca Cola, Asus, Logitech, BenQ, Visa, Mercedes, Flipkart, Snickers, Samsung, Red Bull, Microsoft and Mountain Dew have all gained big by sponsoring e-sports events. According to a study by Nielson in the US, over 30 per cent teens will try a sponsor product, if they’ve sponsored an event they look up to.

As emerging technologies become a reality in India, the gap in numbers with the global average is set to shrink faster than we anticipate. India, currently having a captive e-sports audience of over 30 million, is a part of the largest e-sports segment in the world, which is South East Asia (SEA). With an impressive global standing of 17 and a current market size of $818 million that’s set to cross $1.5 billion by 2022, e-sports and gaming is the tomorrow that’s already arrived.

The writer is Co-founder and CEO, Cobx Gaming.

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