Connecting Brands with Gen Z Through Esports

Our guest is Tushaar Garg from India. He is the Founder and CEO @StreamO as well as the Founder and CEO of Irony Esports.

Our discussion included:

Tushaar talks about how large the market is in India, for those playing and those watching video games. Note: it is huge!

From his beginning as a championship tennis player, Tushaar worked in traditional sports with the IPL – the Indian Premier League Cricket. When the pandemic hit, he decided to become an entrepreneur and to explore what the opportunities in esports would bring.

There are a lot of similarities – and differences – between traditional sport and esports. Tushaar describes how esports can learn from sports in how to become better at monetization.

Tushaar founded, and is now the CEO of StreamO, India’s first livestream sponsorship marketplace. They work at the intersection of the passion economy, live streaming, video gaming, and superfans.

As we learn, the younger audience today is consuming live-streaming entertainment content which is more intimate and engaging. As he points out, ‘Strangers are our new best friends’.

StreamO focuses on opening opportunities for brands to access Gen Z, which can be notoriously difficult. In India, Gen Z makes up 27% of the population with a total of over 375 million individuals. 200 million of that group are active on YouTube.

YouTube Is the biggest gaming platform, with some competition from Twitch and Facebook Gaming playing catch up.

Tushaar and the group at StreamO have a twin-fold solution. First creating an opportunity for content creators to earn 10x to 20x that being paid out by Google. And second working with brands who want to attract the Gen Z audience. They realize that communicating with Gen Z needs a very different approach.

They bring their 5,000+ creators and 100 million subscribers to many of the largest global brands. This is especially powerful as many brands are interested in the huge Indian market, but do not always know the best way to enter.

For content creators, StreamO creates a community for them to learn from each other, providing a model of user generated content and networking.

For brands there are four types of gaming which includes competitive gaming (esports). He is especially proud of their work with Intel Gamer Day.

What are brands looking for? He explains that in addition to a basic understanding of the industry, they want to know more about gaming, talent, and tournaments. The brands are also looking for ways to create content in the vernacular – allowing them to reach a much wider audience in a society with so many different languages.

Tushaar and his team launched Stranger Things for Netflix in India. As he describes it, “We got so many messages from young people who just want to show their parents that playing video games is not a waste of time. And that they can actually make money from a brand like Netflix.”

We wrap up the conversation with Tushaar explaining his answer to the question of whether the Olympics should include esports in their program.

Episode Webpage: https://www.gamerschangelivespodcast.com/connecting-brands-with-gen-z-through-esports-with-tushaar-garg

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FEATURED IN THIS EPISDOE:

Tushaar Garg is the Founder CEO of StreamO, an award-winning creator economy start-up that connects brands with the notoriously hard to reach Gen Z audiences via a new breed of creators (half-athlete - half influencer) who specifically livestream long-form video content to their loyal fans and friends across YouTube Live and Twitch.

StreamO’s clients include Netflix, Amazon Prime, MX Player, One Plus, Crocs, Fastrack, Sony Play Station, Intel, Spotify, and Dell Alienware amongst others.

Previously, Tushaar has been involved with market-maker start-ups in India that have become benchmarks in their respective fields.

In Cricket, he was involved as a founding member in the conceptualization and commercialization of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Tushaar also commercialized India's only ATP Tennis event, and India's first fashion event - the Lakme Fashion Week.

In digital health, he led growth for Stepathlon, an award winning global “Virtual Race” platform that combines social participation, health and wellness to engage both sports fan communities and corporate employees with an inclusive engagement, mass participation and well-being experience.

In esports, Tushaar led monetization for U Cypher - India’s first esports league made-for-TV. He also grew the U Mumba Kabaddi franchise into a multi-sport IP with teams in esports, football, volleyball, and table-tennis.

He is a Tennis Player, Tri-athlete, Trekker and a FIFA Masters and Shri Ram College of Commerce alum.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tushaar-garg-07954613/

StreamO: https://www.streamo.media/

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PRODUCTION:

Creator and host: Tom Leonard (USA) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomeleonard/

Producer: Reginald Nsowah (Ghana) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/reginald-nsowah-09352929/ 

ABOUT THE SHOW:

Play Games. Create Jobs. Change Lives.

This is a show about how to build an esports business from literally anywhere in the world where each week we showcase the journey of esports entrepreneurs and others to learn how they solved a particular problem that everyone will ultimately face.

In Season Two our theme is “Follow the Money”.

I am your host, Tom Leonard. I have a background in entertainment marketing. After working with many amazing esports entrepreneurs from emerging markets, they inspired me to create a show to tell their stories so that others can be motivated to create their own esports business. Gaming and esports can create jobs tackling the problem of global youth unemployment. Creating jobs from playing games. What could be better than that?

Thanks for listening to The Gamers Change Lives Podcast!