Cyka Blyat – how to work with Russian streamers

Marketers of companies which are interested in ad campaigns  with streamers and cyber sportsmen often bypass Russia. Perhaps the reason is the low awareness of the runet. However, streamers are also popular in the Russian-speaking Internet, so we decided to share some insights about working with them.

It’s worth noting  that by the end of 2020, the Russian gaming industry increased by almost 20% – to $ 174.9 billion. This was largely facilitated by Covid-19, due to which people were forced to somehow entertain themselves at home, not being able to visit, for example, cinemas.

The statistics look like this:

• 51% of the world’s consumers play games at least once a month;
• 39% at least once a week;
• 23% of gamers in the world play games once a day;
• 85% plays on a smartphone;
• 66% plays on PC;
• 43% plays on console;
• 51% girls among gamers;
• 26% of gamers are 18 – 35 years old men.

According to SimilarWeb, Russian-speaking users visit Twitch about 45 million times a month. 

Russian streamers, like others, mainly use the Twitch. As you know, on Twitch platform, the main income for streamers is donations or paid subscriptions, and only about 30% of earnings come from ads  integrations. Therefore, it may seem that getting streamers interested in advertising can be difficult. However, from our experience in order to cooperate with streamers, it is enough to remember some nuances:

• streamers have a sensitive audience that always sees false. If a streamer tells you that such ads won’t work, it will be better to take into account his idea. You can try to change the format, give more freedom, but if the streamer refuses with the words “your product does not suit my audience” – most likely it is true. 
• before communicating with a streamer and offering cooperation, it is worth exploring the streamer’s channel – this means that you need to understand the format and style of the channel, share the values ​​and ideas of the gaming community. It will help you to be on the same vibe with the streamer. 
• your product should be really cool and useful. Or you have to convince the streamer that your product is exactly like that. From the point above, it follows that the streamer’s audience is studied as much as possible, you understand what they need and what they don’t, and as the result your product and its price will suit the audience to whom you communicate the ads.
• ads slogans are unlikely to work. Any manipulation will be noticed, the cliché will be ridiculed, and you don’t need it. Let the streamer be honest about your product.
• not many streamers agree to advertise alcohol, tobacco, or other similar products. Firstly, direct ads of alcohol in Russia are prohibited (but there are options that allow it to be done natively), and secondly, streamers take care of their subscribers and their loyalty.
• communication with streamers is a separate challenge – they have no time and are not interested in reading long texts. It means that the proposal should be as clear and short as possible. You also need to be prepared for the fact that the requirements in technical specifications  will not be fulfilled – streamers often simply forget or do not pay attention to it. Be prepared to repeat the obvious things over and over again so that everyone understands the project.

Despite all the difficulties that may arise, cooperation with streamers still has a lot of advantages. In the Russian-speaking segment, you can find channels of any subject, but the most popular are the following:

• s1mple. 2.2 million subscribers. CS player, and for him, it is a sport on the verge of art. In 2020, he was on the second place in the list of the best players in the world-2019.
• buster. 1.7 million subscribers. In this channel you will find streams of CS, Fortnite and Just Chatting. Streamer loves to communicate with subscribers and other streamers, and also often arranges contests, which makes his audience especially happy.
• bRaTiShKiNoFf. 1.5 million subscribers. Streamer plays CS as well as Call Of Duty. He is popular on Twitch, YouTube and other social media networks.
• StarLadder5.  1 million subscribers. CS streams. There is not much information about this streamer, but this does not prevent him from being at the top of popular streamers on Runet.
• Stray228. 900k subscribers. Gamer, streaming Dota. At one time he wanted to become a cyber sportsman, but now he thinks that this is unnecessary. In 2019, he became the most viewed Russian-speaking streamer on Twitch according to Streamelements. 

In general, Russian-speaking streamers can be selected for every project and with any audience, because not only gamers do streams. The target audience of gamers is mainly determined by the genre of the game – for example, Dota fans are mainly young people, Hearthstone and Counter-Strike are older people, and World of Tanks are adult men, and on average, each of these groups spends 2 hours a day watching content.

What types of integrations can be considered in cooperation with  Russian streamers? There are some options:

–  adding a brand to the stream – logo, banner, QR code, terms of the promotion.

– using the name of the brand in the title of the stream. Since the links are not clickable, it is difficult to track the results.

– clickable banner under the channel player.

– social media posts mentioning the advertiser. Placed not on Twitch, but directly on streamer accounts.

– giveaways of sponsored gifts and prizes. Here it is important to have  interesting mechanics in order to have a good result.

– product promotion by the voice of the streamer or product demonstration on the stream screen. The more native the streamer talks about your product, the better.

– product placement in the visibility zone of the webcam. It can be anything for example clothes.

-messages mentioning the name of the brand in the channel chat. It could be done by creating a chatbot that will be publishing the ads messages in the channel chat.

Cross-promotions of brands with game manufacturers. In 2020, the PUBG Mobile game in the Russian market run a mutual campaign  with the Russian chips brand “Moskovskiy kartofel”. The chips packs contained game promotional codes, and branded artifacts with game loot appeared in the game. Such kinds of promotions can be carried out with the participation of popular and recognizable streamers.

In-game integrations. For example, any brand can be incorporated into the Minecraft gameplay without the involvement of the game developers. So in such a way, in February 2020, the movie “Sonic in the Movie” was released. Popular streamers participated in the ad campaign. Together with their subscribers, they were building the legendary first-level “Green Hills” from the cult game Sonic The Hedgehog, which was available for all gamers.

Ambassadorship and sponsorship are still trending. For example, Russian Dota 2 star Roman ‘RAMZEs’ Kushnarev became the first Nike ambassador among cyber sportsmen in Russia in 2020.

And if online is usually perceived as a way to escape from the routine, then the pandemic made it clear that online is a big part of our life. In less than  three quarters of 2020 (the beginning of the pandemic), Twitch has amassed more view hours than it did for the whole of 2019, which is compelling data for brands and marketers. Everything is possible in cooperation with streamers, the format depends only on your imagination and  the budget.

If you need help with running ad campaigns in the Russian market, feel free to contact us. Our experts will be happy to answer all your questions and select streamers for any budget: http://dacompany.pl/en/.