Seeing the Success of Mercedes-Benz Ads at ESL One Hamburg 2021

As the first Major tournament of the season, ESL One Hamburg 2021 was arguably a success. Spectators who witnessed both live and on line very much, quality broadcasting what is presented is cool, and the matches that take place are also exciting and fruitful storyline which I think is worth it.

Multiple media esports has often mentioned the success factors of ESL One Hamburg. But I want to highlight one element that has rarely happened in previous tournaments, namely sponsorship, or rather Mercedes Benz.

Also read: Virtus.Pro Wins First Major Dota 2, ESL One Hamburg 2021

But to this day, sponsor esports is still very much dominated by endemic and semi-endemic companies, aka companies with products that are intended for gamer and fans esports or at least correlated. Examples of these companies include:

• PCs and Laptops (Acer, ASUS, Lenovo)
• Peripherals and other PC components (Logitech, HyperX, Nvidia, Intel, AMD)
• gaming chair (DX Racer, SecretLab)
• Energy drink (Monster, Red Bull)
• Online payments and similar services (in Indonesia UniPin, MoL)
• For overseas, gambling sites (EGB, Loot.Bet)

Sponsors from non-endemic companies (e.g. automotive and fashion) is something that is still rare in esports. Whereas, based on the report from Nielsen, the audience esports actually quite support the involvement of sponsors in events and esports livestream.

Indeed, the data is too general to all types of sponsors. There are times when the audience feels that non-endemic sponsorship activities are inappropriate, but there are also those who don’t mind. The key remains in how the sponsor reaches an audience with demographics that may be unfamiliar to them and makes a good impression.

Mercedes Benz, which is the main sponsor of ESL One Hamburg 2021 seems to be doing it well. Their efforts to promote brand Mercedes Benz focused on one of their newest models a huge success.

No wonder, because they promote the new Mercedes Benz E Class Sedan. The most intelligent E-Class family of all time welcomes a powerful new member to the dynasty. The E400 Sedan model arrives this year, boasting a 3.0L V6 biturbo engine producing 239 hp….

Erm, I’m sorry.

As the main sponsor, Mercedes Benz is really aggressive in advertising at ESL One Hamburg 2021. Their products and logos are not just on posters or static screens, but everywhere I watched the tournament. Here are the forms of advertising and their whereabouts that I could find.

• Between matches and panel segments, the Mercedes Benz advertisement titled Grow Up above is always displayed.
• The introductory video for each team shows them driving a Mercedes-Benz with custom paint logos of each team.
• screen and overlays in phase drafting shows the Mercedes Benz logo and the nuances that are very attached to the logo.
• Venue the tournament places Mercedes Benz cars in several places and is often in the spotlight on cameras.
• Tournament MVP earned through process voting will get a Mercedes-Benz car.

Advertising and exposure they are very aggressive. Coupled with the presence of other sponsors, you can imagine how many ads and brand placement the one at ESL One Hamburg 2021, especially for Mercedes-Benz. Moreover, what they are dealing with is the audience Dota 2 which last season saw the Major and The International with minimal or no sponsorship ads.

But even though the audience on line on Twitch started making jokes about the seemingly excessive number of ads, viewer count on line not reduced. Then even though copy-paste Twitch scrolls non-stop, nothing degrades brand image of these sponsors, including Mercedes-Benz which is the most aggressive in advertising. As we mentioned above, audience esports aware of the importance of the existence of sponsors and continue to accept.

The audience response was more than expected. There are many interactions on line which always ends in the keyword “grow up” which was the headline of the ad they showed at the tournament. Not only that, the audience and the community Dota 2 who witnessed the tournament created memes themselves.

Broadcaster this tournament itself either intentionally or not participate in using memes this. Throughout the tournament until patch notes 7.07 was released a few days ago, you will surely find memes above in all thread first page on Reddit Dota 2. Even Mercedes-Benz itself then used memes the.

In the end, Mercedes-Benz benefited greatly because brand and keywords grow up often used by the community Dota 2. Their products even though they are made memes, always appears on the forum on line biggest for Dota 2 in a tone that doesn’t demean the product at all. Audiences themselves get content that is considered “unique”, and of course fresh new memes.

I’m sure Mercedes Benz won big and of course very satisfied with the result marketing and branding they. In a press release, both ESL and Mercedes Benz admitted that they were satisfied with the results of the 2021 ESL One Hamburg.

Indeed, they won’t immediately capture an audience esports the majority are still young enough to buy a car. But they managed to make brand Mercedes-Benz as a luxury car embedded in their heads. The next five years, when this audience then”grow up“, can make money, and want to buy a luxury car, don’t be surprised if they remember and end up buying a Mercedes-Benz.

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Mercedes-Benz is not the first non-endemic company to have success as a sponsor in esports. Audi, which is both an automotive company from Germany, has previously been a sponsor of Astralis. Geico and Gilette are also quite successful sponsors of TSM. But Mercedes-Benz was one of the few to advertise aggressively in a tournament and had great success.

Even so, it does not mean that companies can carelessly become sponsors and place any advertisements as long as they pay sufficient funds. Mercedes-Benz and ESL are successful thanks to the right campaigns and the right placement of ads, products and logos on events and stream tournament. But we should discuss it in another article.

ESL and Mercedes-Benz have had success with their efforts. But most importantly, they also open a bright spot that as long as the method is right, any company can penetrate into the market esports and well received. That way, they can open up new markets for brand and their products. Hopefully with this more companies will be willing to sponsor the tournament esports, not only abroad, but also in Indonesia.

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