Porsche, the premium car manufacturer, was launching a new electric vehicle – the Porsche 99X Electric Formula E racing car.

Porsche wanted to engage a new, hard-to-reach audience, without glossy magazines, TVCs or the need for journalists to travel to a show. Porsche was looking for a way to make the entry into Formula E known to a completely new, younger, target group by involving them directly in the unveiling of the Porsche 99X Electric. In short, they wanted a never been done before, entirely new way of launching a car.

To launch the car in an unexpected, never-been-done-before way, engaging the 16-34 year old, tech-savvy and digital audience and developing the Porsche brand, all whilst maintaining the premium brand position. The idea had to be bold enough to attract press attention. The KPI was to hit 300,000 unique viewers.

A custom-built, interactive, gamified livestream was created on Twitch to allow gamers to find and reveal, or ‘unlock’ in gamer terms, the new Porsche 99X Electric to the world in real-time. The experience was a blend of role player games, escape rooms and ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ games, and the experience used familiar gaming mechanics and nods to classic video games.

The live action gamified stream was entirely controlled by players. Every move made in the game was decided by them through interactive voting of options that appeared dynamically on screen. Every decision had an implication for the progression of the game and created a different set of options for the audience to choose from, resulting in an immersive, viewer-led, community-driven brand reveal in a live set at the Porsche HQ, working with Twitch Influencers to stream the content. An innovative car launch, unlike any before.

Porsche wanted to engage a new, hard-to-reach audience: the 16-34 year old, tech-savvy and digital audience, who make up 73% of the Twitch community.

The strategy was to utilise the key elements that drive millions of Gen Z’s to Twitch every day: interactivity, live feeds and voluntary viewing experiences with a community. We needed something unique and bespoke, never done by any car brand, anywhere: to place the reveal of the new car entirely in the hands of the gamer community through a custom built, interactive, game play, live stream that would be entirely controlled by the viewers, not just showing off a new car, but instead getting them to actively find the car.

Twitch influencers streamed the content and famous Porsche Formula E drivers announced a new global ‘PorscheWIN’ Emote, now posted more than 19.9m times. An innovative car launch, unlike any before.

Twitch built new livestream extensions, a vast database of story trees, and a live set at the Porsche HQ. After the game, famous Porsche Formula E drivers announced a new global ‘PorscheWIN’ Emote (like an emoji, but a form of communication and social status on Twitch.)

Over a two-week build-up, teaser ads on Twitch showed a Porsche driver attempting to enter a secret Porsche facility, with a CTA to go to the Twitch Porsche channel on the launch day, when viewers could control the driver’s every move in real-time. The game started, the narrative unravelled and the car was revealed after four hours.

Everything took place on the Porsche channel on Twitch.

It was a one-off event but the Emote has been posted more than 19.9m times a year on. (Usually branded emotes are deleted after three months.) Four hours of entertainment gathered 1.3m views.

There were 900,000 uniques, 28,581 max concurrent viewers, and over 1.3 million views, tripling the KPI for the livestream. It reached more than any other across the globe at that time, resulting in over six years’ engagement time.

Streamers in the UK, US, Germany and France watched the activation with their communities, giving Porsche a total influencer stream time of 85 hours. 13,375,898 impressions were delivered in 18 markets, with 100,324 clicks and average 80% view through rate.

There were more than 85,000 chat messages with the target group. The ‘PorscheWIN’ Emote has been posted more than 19.9m times.

“We were able to directly get the audience to participate with the reveal of the Porsche 99X Electric and to communicate and interact like never before with that whole new audience we wanted to reach.” Oliver Hoffmann, Director Marketing Communications, Porsche AG