The telecommunications brand created custom maps within the video game to show players how its fiber capabilities could enhance their gaming.
It was time for AT&T Fiber to join the ranks of brands turning to creative game marketing to recapture the imaginations of audiences, especially gen Z and millennial gamers. The brand needed to find a way to introduce AT&T Fiber in the metaverse, raise awareness among the elusive gaming audience, engage them with the product, and authentically demonstrate the high-speed data transfer and true-to-life visuals that AT&T Fiber offers to gen Z and millennial gamers.
AT&T Fiber laid more than 60,000 miles of fiber in the U.S. in 2022 and has been looking for an effective platform to convey this accomplishment to younger audiences. Data transfer statistics are especially pertinent to this audience, as AT&T Fiber supports more than 594 petabytes of data traffic on an average day — the equivalent of streaming nearly 40 million two-hour long movies in HD.
With a swelling audience of gamers, developers have poured even more data into their creations, resulting in increasingly intricate map designs and character capabilities. Audiences crave ambitious gaming projects, which often drive massive earned media for their outlandish developmental feats.
AT&T knew if it partnered with the right developers, it could collaborate on a game update that would fully utilize the superior high speed data transfer and true-to-life visuals of AT&T Fiber to deliver for a gaming audience that would savor each detail.
According to a YouGov report, 65 percent of adults are active gamers, making for an audience of three billion active gamers every six hours each week. Of that audience, gen Z and millennials spend about 11 hours weekly playing video games, according to additional data from Deloitte.
AT&T wanted to reach this gaming audience, so the brand had to find an authentic way to show, through in-game experiences, what AT&T Fiber was capable of.
Fortnite stood out as a promising potential partner with its massive reach. With 223 million average monthly players, the video game's audience was primed to respond to an impressive update to their beloved game.
Through a series of Fortnite Creative map releases, AT&T undertook to show its target audience what AT&T Fiber was capable of.
The challenge that was posed by the effort wasn't just about creative impact; it was also about resonating deeply with AT&T's target demographic. This demand required not only choosing the right message and content but also the right battlegrounds for the campaign. After careful analysis, AT&T homed in on Atlanta, Dallas, and Los Angeles.
These markets were particularly crucial, as they offered a high saturation of gaming enthusiasts (both gen Z and millennials), represented high-priority AT&T Fiber markets, and radiated local pride that would translate to real-time enthusiasm for encountering recognizable landmarks within the maps.
Together with developers, AT&T and its agency partner, Hearts & Science, created each location map in minute detail. The maps showcased each local market's most significant landmarks, unique layouts, and ever-changing atmosphere, offering gamers a real-world experiential interaction on a platform that often leans toward the fantastical. In each map, AT&T also organized three different mini-games, from Fortnite Football to Vehicle Derby, to ensure players had more reasons to explore the different maps.
This campaign marked AT&T Fiber's successful debut in a Web3 environment and effectively communicated its bandwidth capabilities in the form of intricate maps and enhanced gameplay and graphics, promoting awareness of AT&T Fiber to the intended audience.
AT&T's effort didn't stop there. To promote its Fortnite appearance and impressive streaming strength, the brand collaborated with high-profile gaming influencers. AT&T selected partnerships with significant audience saturation in each of the target markets, including influential Hispanic gaming creators (a crucial audience in the L.A. market), introducing them and their followers to AT&T new map builds via organic social posting.
AT&T used the influencer posts to tease live-streamed Twitch events, inspiring substantial tune-in from the desired demographics. As users joined the live streams of their favorite Fortnite streamers, they were introduced to the scale of AT&T's new map builds via live-streamed gameplay using AT&T Fiber.
Finaly, to engage an even broader audience, AT&T teamed up with athletes who had strong ties to each map-build city, who challenged the brand's gaming talent to participate in one-on-one challenges within the new map. This expanded the brand's audience to be cross-sectional and non-overlapping, while still ensuring that AT&T was speaking to a high-interest audience.
AT&T's campaign demonstrated considerable success.
On YouTube and display, the brand generated 23.5 million impressions and successfully engaged a substantial audience, resulting in a more than 5 percent increase in its video-completion rate (to over 95 percent) and an over 100 percent increase in click-through rate compared to partner benchmarks.
Moreover, 39,600 gen Z and millennial gamers interacted with AT&T's Fortnite content.
With that attention, AT&T Fiber drove strong brand recall, with over three-quarters unaidedly mentioning AT&T as present during their respective live streams. And after watching the live stream, over two-thirds reported being likely to learn more about AT&T Fiber.
These findings showed the effectiveness of AT&T's communication: Authentically engaging with its audience and showcasing the real-world advantages of its fiber technology, the brand provided gamers with more reasons and opportunities to immerse themselves in the expansive worlds it had created, thereby encouraging them to consider AT&T Fiber for their gaming setups at home.
