Most gaming activation briefs get one thing wrong. Here's the fix.

What are most briefs actually asking for?

We read a lot of briefs. The pattern is almost always the same: a target audience defined by demographic, a reach or awareness KPI, and a channel list that assumes gaming is one of them. Impressions. Video views. Sometimes a soft consideration lift target if the brand has done a bit of homework.

There’s nothing wrong with any of those inputs. But if that’s all the brief has, the campaign you get back is a media buy, not an idea. And gaming inventory that hits those metrics is both expensive and heavily commoditised. You end up buying pre-roll on Twitch competing with a hundred other brands for the same fifteen-second attention window that costs three times what Meta charges.

What’s the thing they get wrong?

Treating gaming as a media channel instead of a behaviour.

Gaming is intentional. People choose to play. They choose to watch streams. They choose to follow creators, join Discords, camp release day, argue about balance patches. That intent is the asset. Most briefs waste it, because they’re structured to buy attention rather than earn it.

What does a good brief look like instead?

Three questions. We’ve run them on every campaign we’ve done for the last five years, and we’ve yet to have a bad campaign start with all three answered honestly.

1. What are we asking them to do?

Not what are they going to see. What are they going to do. Play something? Watch something? Talk about something? Tell a friend? Buy something? Show up somewhere? Every good gaming activation has a verb at the centre of it. If yours doesn't, that's the first thing to fix.

2. What's the honest reason they'd do it?

Fun, status, money, access, curiosity, tribalism, novelty. Pick one and be honest about it. Brands who can't answer this end up building campaigns around what they wish the audience wanted, not what the audience actually wants. That's the tell of a campaign that will underperform.

3. What breaks if we're not there?

The most important question, and the one nobody asks. If a competitor could run the same activation with their logo swapped in and it would work identically, you don't have a brief, you have a template. What's the specific reason your brand should be the one doing this thing, and what's the specific reason right now?

Nothing breaks? Prove it. Something breaks? That’s the campaign.

Isn’t this just marketing 101?

Yes and no. It’s marketing 101 that gets skipped because gaming feels foreign. Every serious media brief we see for Meta, TV, cinema and outdoor has these three questions embedded. Every gaming brief we see has them missing, because the person writing it isn’t sure enough about gaming to think in fundamentals. So they default to channel and audience thinking.

Rewrite your brief with the three questions on top. The rest of it, target audience, KPI, budget, channels, all falls out easier from there.

Where do we go from here?

Try it on your next brief before you send it out. If you’re stuck on any of the three, send it to us. We’ll tell you what’s still off. No pitch attached.

Frequently asked

Common follow-ups.

Does this apply to esports specifically, or all gaming?

Especially esports. Esports audiences are the sharpest at spotting brands who don't answer the "why us, why now" question. The intent question matters everywhere, but it's life-or-death in esports.

What if the client genuinely just wants awareness?

Fine. But awareness alone is the most expensive KPI in gaming inventory. Ask what the awareness is for, and you'll usually find a better campaign underneath. If not, buy Meta. It'll be cheaper.

How do I know my brief passes the three questions?

Show it to three people outside marketing. If they can't explain what you're asking the audience to do, why they'd do it, and what makes your brand right for it, it's not there yet.