Since 2020, Xbox events had been entirely digital - but with two major 1st party games launching in 2023, Xbox decided to re-enter the physical event space with a bang. Gamescom, the world’s leading event in gaming, presented the perfect opportunity for Xbox to celebrate those major game launches with their largest event presence yet. Stakes were high to make the most of this moment to ensure it helped drive conversation and interest in both the Xbox and wider gaming communities. Our objective was to maximize the resonance and appeal of this event by bringing the Xbox gamescom experience to life for the millions of fans who couldn’t travel to Cologne. We wanted as many community members as possible to feel just as involved in the celebration at gamescom as those who were able to attend in person.
How do you make digital fans feel like they’re on the show floor with you through a screen? We knew this would take more than posting the latest news coming out at the show. It would take a dedicated team out on the floor capturing and creating content to give a truly unparalleled look behind the scenes. We chose to create content for social platforms as if we were a fan attending Gamescom, giving viewers exclusive looks at everything they’d get to see if they were there.
The online community uses different social platforms for different reasons, so we built our approach in a way that aligns with their usage and interests – featuring native-to-platform content, custom-tailored to each social channel. We weren’t just a brand sharing news; we were a community member sharing what makes gamescom a truly awe-inspiring event across multiple social platforms.
We supported daily livestreams optimized for multiple social channels for 5 days, hosted by local talent and accompanied with multi-language subtitles to maximize accessibility across the entire global community. Beyond this series of streams, we activated across the entire Xbox Social ecosystem with platform bespoke content. From booth tours on Snapchat and Instagram Stories, to event photography on Instagram and longer-form video content on YouTube.
We designed a detailed rollout cadence ensuring every channel at our disposal was activated in a way that provided unique value to the audience – and did so in a way that aligned with what the social community loves on each channel. We gave our audience Xbox exclusive, unparalleled, behind-the-scenes access throughout the entire event.
With more than 88M Impressions, 750k engagements, 76k shares, and 17M views, this coverage drastically outperformed Xbox’s previous gamescom numbers across each of these metrics. This set an entirely new standard in bringing a live, in-person gaming event to life for a massive global online audience.
