Popular holidays throughout the year have become essential in the gaming industry to reignite user interest, with many developers incorporating beloved holiday themes, festivities, and trends into their games. 

While these tentpoles allow video games to up the ante for loyal gamers, it has also developed into a channel to re-engage dormant players, encouraging them to come back, be a part of major events, and join in on the conversation happening around their favorite games.

That’s where marketers make their mark: integrating their brands, products, and messaging into video games by creating unique in-game holiday events for brand awareness at a large scale. However, opportunities are limited, with availability and affordability posing significant challenges for brands to activate with popular video game titles directly during key tentpoles.

With BBTV, marketers have the opportunity to approach the community in a unique and more impactful way through top gamers leading the conversation around popular video game titles. Ahead of this upcoming holiday season, you can align your brand with versatile, multi-platform gaming creators and YouTubers that produce content around holiday gaming trends that resonate with millions of viewers in an authentic way. In this case, brands won’t have to rely on unpredictable results from potentially expensive and laborious in-game activations.

What Holiday Gaming Trends Are We Seeing?

The holiday season is a crucial time period for the industry, as video game spending is at its highest while seeing the most players online in comparison to the rest of the calendar year. In Q4 of 2021, the market forecasted close to three billion gamers with a significant increase in sales at 5.4% from 2020 to 2021. Mobile gaming also saw a massive jump at 20% vs. 2021’s average.

During a time where gamers are most engaged with their favorite mobile apps and console titles, developers are making huge updates across popular games to capitalize on the spending habits and usage, while resonating with loyal players through cherished holiday festivities. Video game titles—big or small—incorporate holiday themes within their game in a variety of ways: 

• In-game events
• Unique character skins
• New game modes available for a limited time
• Updated scenery
• Timed giveaways

Gamers on YouTube also take notice, using these key holiday tentpoles as an opportunity to create unique and timely content for viewers looking to gain insight into new and exciting updates on their favorite games. With BBTV’s massive network of gaming creators, advertisers have unparalleled access to some of the most engaged gaming audiences and communities at scale.

Work With BBTV’s Network of Gamers During The Holidays

With YouTube set as the home for many gaming superstars, BBTV is the best place for brands looking to reach a passionate and multi-generational audience that loves gaming content.

Through popular and diverse gaming creators like Jelly, iamSanna, Kwebbelkop, InquisitorMaster, KjraGaming, Tfue, and Typical Gamer, BBTV offers access to an exclusive network of YouTube creators, giving advertises the opportunity to tap into engaged Gaming and eSports audiences at scale. In fact, this collection of creators alone amasses over 83 million subscribers with hundreds of millions of views a month.

Brands have the ability to partner with influential gaming YouTubers by co-creating custom, original content, or by integrating seamlessly and authentically with pre-existing programming and scheduled shows. For the holiday season, popular YouTubers will create content around major themes including gameplay highlights, live streams of in-game events, in-game holiday updates, and reviews of festive character and weapon skins. 

To get ahead of the holiday festivities and other massive in-game events in the future, marketers have the unique opportunity to align with BBTV’s network of gaming creators through exclusive and proprietary methods, like channel and video level sponsorships, to contextually target the most relevant audiences for any given strategy. Advertisers working with BBTV also have an added level of brand safety and brand alignment guaranteed through proprietary VISO technology, shielding your brand campaign from unauthorized and inappropriate content and environments. 

As gaming continues to dominate the holidays as one of the top sources for both subcultural and mainstream entertainment, brands can benefit immensely by aligning themselves with the biggest names and influences that are tapping into content themes that resonate with fans and players during the festive season. BBTV’s gaming network also crosses over into other popular verticals, allowing brands to engage with viewers beyond their favorite video games and into other interests that fall under a variety of categories such as entertainment, sports, lifestyle, and much more.

Between increased spending and usage of video games during the holidays, unparalleled access to influential gaming YouTubers and their audiences, and powerful technology, marketers can check off all the boxes with BBTV when running effective, safe, and authentic brand campaigns for millions of gamers during their favorite holidays and tentpoles.

Learn how you can position your brand amongst the trees and advertise against the most popular content creators and gaming titles ahead of the holidays to stand out above the rest of the competition.