Anew global gametech, entertainment and marketing company, Livewire has launched across the APAC region, led by co-founders Brad Manuel and Indy Khabra.

Speaking to Ministry of Sport ahead of the launch, Manuel said the lack of a holistic approach to gaming marketing strategy for brands is what Livewire hopes to eliminate.

“The gap in the market is there’s an opportunity to create a really in depth, integrated gaming marketing strategy for brands,” Manuel told Ministry of Sport.

“That’s everything from cross-platform like Twitch and YouTube, to working with talented influencers, to working with major publishers and consoles, to knowing media buying within gaming and programmatic assets within mobile gaming as well.

“So there’s a few people working on a couple different areas of that, but there’s not many people working on the whole thing, so we wanted to create a gaming agency very focused on working with major brands and players in the space to create a really integrated marketing strategy with them,” he said.

Speaking on the rise of gaming in recent years and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Manuel said: “Gaming globally, brands have started to be very active in the space in the last few years and that’s been even more sped up with COVID.”

“In Australia, we’ve seen more brands start to enter, but for a lot of people, there’s lots of interest but people don’t know how to start.

“They don’t want to spend money in the wrong spot, so they’re looking for guidance and people to tell them how they should invest in gaming, where their audience is, and how they should be talking to them, and that’s where we can be really useful,” he said.

When asked what advice he would give to brands thinking about getting involved in gaming marketing, Manuel told Ministry of Sport it’s important to have a deep understanding of your entire strategy before investing.

“Apart from contacting us, the major thing is for the brand to understand their own strategy and audience they are trying to target, and then to really working on what they want to get from their marketing.”

“Is it awareness in the category or is it a call-to-action.

“They need a really tight brief for what they are trying to do.

“Obviously tongue-in-cheek, but that’s what we’re here for, we want to help brands to do that effectively,” Manuel said.

Manuel and his fellow Livewire co-founder, Khabra, have experience across the globe working with such companies as Microsoft, Disney, American Express, L’Oreal, Universal Pictures, Epic Games, Samsung, Intel, McDonalds and a number of sporting organisations.

With the launch of Livewire, Khabra said brands will have access to a global gaming market with over 2.6 billion consumers, “the majority of which are between 16 and 40 years old and beginning to build long term awareness of, and relationship with, brands and products.”

“What makes these consumers interesting to brands is that they engage with traditional media and marketing (TV, radio and out of home) at a much lower frequency than prior generations, earning the label of ‘cord cutters’ for their behaviour of opting out of traditional marketing and using subscriptions to avoid advertising,” Khabra said.

In a media release announcing the launch of Livewire, Manuel said: “There will be further releases in the coming weeks announcing a range of contracts Livewire has already secured with brands, gaming organisations and agencies, highlighting the full and continually growing extent of Livewire’s partnerships.”