Nivea took its caring ethos to the next level by bringing Saudi Arabia its first-ever e-sports coaching platform to inspire young Saudi girl gamers.

First, we identified female Saudi e-athletes, then celebrated and endorsed them, giving them a media platform to coach and inspire Saudi girl gamers.

"Girls Got Game", a cross-media e-sports coaching platform, spanned across YouTube, TikTok, Discord, and Twitch.

By setting up this media platform and forum, Saudi e-athletes created a supportive community with an e-sports and gaming inspiration and culture at its heart.

Saudi girls thrived, played, and became the champion gamers they dreamt to be.

Nivea has built its brand on scientific, functional credentials that build trust over years, but had stopped romancing its buyers; failing to make an impression on the hearts of new and future buyers (young Saudi women) lacking in emotional differentiation on key emotional indexes like “makes me feel good” and “achieving healthy beautiful skin.”

Young Saudi women are living in a completely different world to the generation before them, so Nivea’s outdated reputation, combined with a period of inactivity as the brand reinvented itself, led to a huge drop in brand performance on top-of-mind awareness among 16-to-24-year-old Saudi women.

Having just reformulated its global brand to focus on the “transformative power of the human touch,” how could Nivea urgently reintroduce itself to young Saudi women in distinctive, culturally relevant way (vs L’Oréal and Neutrogena), to achieve reach and resonance for the brand that would drive ongoing usage and penetration?

Nivea has long cared for women’s skin, but to truly connect to young Saudi women, we took its care to a deeper level.

We persuaded Nivea to venture into gaming and show its care for Saudi girl gamers.

"GIRLS GOT GAME": THE FIRST-EVER E-SPORTS COACHING PLATFORM FOR SAUDI GIRL GAMERS BY SAUDI GIRL GAMERS.

We enabled Nivea to become a beacon of care for Saudi girl gamers, making them feel more inspired in their gaming skins.

We did so by partnering with Saudi Arabia’s top women e-athletes, and for the first time, created an e-sports coaching platform for Saudi girls.

In doing so, showcased Saudi women e-athletes for the first time, and in turn, gave young Saudi girls new role models.

Nivea needed to reach young Saudi women, aged 16-24, via social media channels to increase awareness, build a connection and drive product purchase.

In a time when Saudi women were being empowered in the real world, they were being left behind and not included in the gaming world.

With only 5% of e-athletes being women, Saudi girls stated in 1-to-1 interviews, how they were not inspired to take on careers in gaming in what they felt was a male-dominated world.

They lacked female role models and mentors in the gaming world. And couldn’t see themselves pursuing a career in gaming.

As a result:

87% of Saudi girl gamers quit gaming before they turned 18.

This was an inequality in the industry and the world of gaming that needed to be addressed by Nivea - a brand that cared for women and believed in the transformative power of that care.

We designed and built a platform served as a first-of-its-kind e-sports coaching portal that spanned across YouTube, Twitch, Discord and TikTok.

Through it we were able to showcase inspiring e-athletes and allow them to inspire young girl gamers.

MAKING IT AN ENTERTAINING GAMING AS WELL AS AN ENTERTAINING SHOPPING EXPERIENCE:

The e-athlete coaches shared their personal gaming tactics, tricks and special techniques, while importantly, encouraging young girl gamers to keep playing and keep honing their gaming skills.

They also shared their skincare routines and their preferred Nivea products, in a very organic and natural manner, while speaking about the gameplay, thereby integrating product conversations.

The Girls Got Game platform spanned the course of 9 months with dozens of featured e-athletes sharing their stories, coaching likeminded gamers, and streaming entertaining gameplay.

WE SPARKED NATIONAL ATTENTION:

Seeding popular gaming forums, male gamers and media platforms, we made Nivea's Saudi girl gamers famous.

Nivea became the first mover in the gaming territory in a category where competitors were engaging young Saudi girls elsewhere on expected channels with expected topics.

Girls Got Game put Nivea on the minds of young female Saudi gamers. And as more female gamers emerged to take on the male dominated industry, Nivea scored wins too.

• Popular gaming forums, male gamers and media platforms supported the initiative from Nivea.

• The Saudi Government and affiliated bodies got involved and took action too.

• A reach of over 14 million impressions to the key demographic.

• 12 million livestream viewers.

• Breaking social media engagement records, exceeding engagement benchmarks by 55%.

• 85% video completion.

• Brand consideration increased +32.7%.

• Brand uplift increased +29.2%.

• Buzz (Have you heard it being talked about/talked about it) increased +24.4%.

• Intent to purchase increased +7.7%.

• Purchase volumes increased +20.8%.

About 90% of male gamers take part in esports on an amateur or semi-pro basis, while around 100 Saudi gamers are pursuing e-sports as a full-time career.

In 2022, Saudi Arabia unveiled investments worth SR142 billion ($37.8 billion) to transform the Kingdom into a global gaming hub with world-class gaming companies.

The government hopes to create 39,000 jobs, establish 250 game developers, and promote a thriving in-house talent pool for esports that will raise the sector’s contribution to the Kingdom’s economy to SR50 billion by 2030.

It was a burgeoning industry that lacked adequate female representation until 2022.