‘E-sports+’ in COVID-19: Fashion and Esports Make Their Way, Hand in Hand and Hopefully

Posted on Business Today

Sooner or later, we might see an esports club on Madame Figaro’s cover. While going through inside pages, we might find an advertisement for the limited-edition Gucci Dive watch, featured by Fnatic.

The global pandemic is squeezing the living space of many industries, such as the traditional fashion industry. However, in some Internet-based fields such as esports, COVID-19 produces more opportunities and spotlights them instead. It also catalyzes more boundary-crossing cooperation: traditional industries need new blood to twist the adverse situation. In contrast, emerging industries want legacy icons or brands to help them unlock broader markets. Hence, the marriage between fashion and esports under the pandemic is unexpected but predictably influential.

In June, such boundary-breaking cooperation comes to an exciting climax; multiple partnerships are launched one after another. On Jun. 9, the German-speaking region League of Legends competition, Prime League, announces a collaboration with the American clothing company Levi’s. On Jun. 25, in partnership with the global esports entertainment organization Fnatic, Gucci launches a limited-edition collection of Gucci Dive watches, bringing Gucci’s eclectic aesthetic into the world of electronic gaming. In the esports’ new Wild West, China, such partnerships are also a popular trend. In June, the Chinese esports club WE and the legacy French fashion magazine Madame Figaro have agreed on a partnership “to explore possibilities in esports fashion.” Besides, Louise Vuitton, Gentle Monster, PUMA, and multiple esports organizations successively rush into this arena.

Indeed, lots of fashion and luxury brands are establishing boundary-crossing collaborations for jointly signed products or strategic media campaigns in recent years. Those whom fashion brands cooperate with are mostly emerging industrial hot spots. Under the market background of coronavirus, the esports industry becomes a rising star. Hence, more and more fashion and luxury brands are seeking opportunities to cooperate with esports teams and organizations. These partnerships include public relations sponsorships, collaboration products, other strategic cooperation, and special-edition advertisements. Some brands focus on specific esports teams, while others might directly collaborate with esports leagues. The partnerships are overall various.

The goals are the same: fashion brands need esports as a key to enter younger markets, while esports need a shortcut to win public recognition more rapidly. In brief, they need each other. It will be a win-win partnership; the pandemic, in a way, rushes the whole process.

According to Bain’s 2019 report about the global luxury market, millennials (Gen Y) and Gen Z customers become the significant purchasing power of luxury. In 2019, Gen Y accounted for 35% of consumption. Gen Z customers are regarded as the future of luxury and fashion buyers. “Gen Z customers are the new frontiers of tomorrow’s luxury market – and they already represent a growing portion of luxury consumption in Asian markets,” said Federica Levato, a Bain & Company partner and co-author of the report above. In short, the primary audience group of luxury and fashion is going to be younger, which somehow overlaps with the fan community of esports.

Therefore, to those fashion brands, the target audience groups brought by global esports communities are mostly younger people. These groups of people are whom traditional fashion brands want to approach more. From the partnership with esports brands, fashion brands can quickly improve their recognition among the younger generations and rejuvenate their brand images. Meanwhile, the purchasing power younger generations obtain is what these fashion brands want to aim at and lock ahead of time.

Moreover, the behavioral logic of younger fashion and luxury buyers is similar to how esports fans connect with the games or teams they support. In Bain’s study, Levato also said, “they [Gen Z customers] see themselves as critical actors of the creativity and conversations with luxury brands; they are returning to products, stores, and physical interactions with brands to truly connect and engage emotionally with them.” Interestingly, from the comment board under the news release of Fnatic-Gucci’s jointly signed wristwatch collection, we can see that loyalty and emotional engagement are frequently mentioned by esports fans' communities.

Additionally, the esports industry is drastically growing up worldwide in recent years. According to Newzoo’s Global Esports Market Report 2020, global esports revenues will grow to US$1.1 billion in 2020, a year-on-year growth of 15.7%, up from US$950.6 million in 2019. And in the mobile esports area, apart from a huge spike in the past year, the emerging markets from Southeast Asia to Brazil are leading the industrial growth internationally.

However, misconceptions and lacking cultural recognition become significant issues that hamper further developments of esports. Compared with traditional sports events, esports has long represented a minority; the dispute about whether “esports is real sport” or not has never ended. At this moment, the pandemic terminates most traditional sports events globally, while esports tournaments become the only survival.

Hence, to the very niche sporting event in the past, an unprecedented opportunity comes to help them win more public recognition. For example, via these partnerships with fashion brands, esports organizations and leagues can rapidly establish a more mature public image with more public recognition and business values. And it will be a key to breaking misconceptions and the niche market boundaries in the future. In other words, such partnerships emblem a warm welcome from the entire mainstream pop culture kingdom to the esports industry.