Worlds Beyond Gameplay

"ESL FACEIT Group is the largest esports company in the world. We are the leader for esports events through our ESL vertical, but we also have a gaming platform called Faceit with over 30 million gamers, and we do gaming festivals. We are really at the centre of gaming culture."

Zecchini comes from Formula One where the average audience age is in the forties. ESL FACEIT Group's average audience age is 26 and a half. More importantly, gamers do not age out of the ecosystem. They move from active playing to viewing to content creation to event attendance, remaining connected throughout their lives.

"I think if they come in and just want to do a very traditional sponsorship model, which is just a brand awareness piece, in most cases it would fall a bit flat. The gaming community is very vocal. If you disrupt their ecosystem too much, they will call you out."

Zecchini is direct about what happens when brands treat gaming like a display placement. The community identifies it immediately, the sentiment is negative, and the activation fails. The contrast she draws is with DHL, whose audience participation in Dota 2 events has reached the point where fans chant the brand name in arenas. That took years of genuine commitment and community value.

"Whether it is DHL doing a recruitment campaign to help young people enter the job market, or Gucci doing an incredible storytelling piece looking at icons within the gaming world, or Intel giving back with giveaways and Twitch drops. When you are able to do that, especially with a long-term commitment, you really see audiences build a rapport with the brand that is very different to what we see in other entertainment realms."

The three examples share a common thread: they are all doing something for the community rather than at the community. None of them are just putting a logo on a surface. The result in each case is that the community associates the brand with positive experiences, which produces the kind of sentiment and loyalty that a passive awareness campaign cannot generate.

"It goes from brand awareness, how many people are discussing what the brand is doing. You talk about sentiment. We talk about engagement, how many people are actively participating. And then digitally we can track that journey a lot more precisely."

Measurement in esports has both traditional and novel dimensions. Traditional sports metrics like eyeballs and dwell time transfer directly. But gaming adds branded digital missions on the Faceit platform, where brands set in-game objectives for players and measure how many people actively participate. This creates a direct line between brand investment and measurable audience behaviour.

"Go in with a long-term plan. I disagree with dip your feet. I think if you dip your feet in gaming, you are bound to fail because you cannot compare it to any other entertainment pillar in terms of results. Work with experts to develop something authentic to the community. Do not act like an awkward corporate partner."

Zecchini's final advice condenses everything she has said: authenticity, commitment, and community investment are not optional extras in gaming. They are the price of entry. A brand that approaches the space with a short-term budget and a legacy media mindset will measure failure and conclude the channel does not work.