Generation Twitch: what cultural trends do brands need to know?
piece first published in Warc.com
What brands need to know about the cultural shifts behind Generation Twitch
Participants at the recent Advertising Week APAC conference heard about how Generation Twitch, the young users of the live-streaming platform, expect experiences to be dynamic and collective.
The platform is popular for non-toxic entertainment and as a community destination for live chat and social interaction. Part of a new generation of platforms such as TikTok, Discord and Snap, Twitch is forcing legacy social media brands to adjust their focus.
The key for any Twitch streamer, whether running a tutorial, performing music or playing a game, is to be real.
Why it matters
The next generation is leading cultural change, and brands have to earn the right to communicate with them. This is because the old modalities of force-fed polished brand content are over and digital engagement is about being part of a supportive community.
Takeaways
There is move away from social media’s individualised social amplification to a community-centric, connected experience. Advertisers must deliver brand experiences that are unvarnished and relatable to a generation that is harder to build trust with. The opportunity for brands at stream events is to find influencers to subtly promote products in a vulnerable or emotive manner.
At the recent Advertising Week APAC conference in Sydney, Australia, livestreaming platform Twitch revealed the emerging cultural trends and behaviours that advertisers must adhere to in order to gel with what they call “Generation Twitch”.
The Amazon-owned live-streaming platform added 14 million new users last year and has become a popular web destination for young gamers and other niche topic enthusiasts seeking a non-toxic outlet for entertainment and a community destination for live chat and social interaction. A global ethnographic and audience segmentation report conducted last year by the company shows Generation Twitch expects experiences to be dynamic and collective.
Brands that understand culture will be able to provide more authentic cultural messages. Twitch believes it is at the forefront of the movement to reach the elusive audiences of millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha. The platform boasts 140 million monthly active users in 2022 and while it may not have TikTok’s one billion daily active users, it has built a toxic-free brand-safe interactive community. Ninja, the top-ranked streamer on Twitch, had 18 million followers in July 2022.
Generation Twitch’s cultural values
Jan Bojko, Twitch Client Insights and Measurements Director for APAC, said Twitch was part of the new generation of platforms, such as TikTok, Discord and Snap, which are forcing legacy social media brands to adjust their focus. “Twitch is at the forefront of the movement to reach this new, emerging audience. We call them ‘Generation Twitch’ and they span millennials, Generation Z and Generation Alpha. It’s an audience who have grown up in a digital world and have, for the most part, always been connected.”
By their reckoning, Twitch is well placed to grow its platform and target the world’s 2.5 billion Gen Z as they grow up and increasingly seek positive digital experiences and interaction with like-minded people, music stars and niche topic celebrities.
By the end of this decade, Twitch claims Gen Z will have US$33 trillion in purchasing power. The cultural and social shifts underway will have major ramifications for brands seeking to make an impact in the next decade. “Increasingly, consumers are moving away from the individualised social amplification that social media provides, to a more community-centric, connected, decentralised experience,” Bojko said, adding that this is the type of experience that was born in gaming environments but has now broadened across content and culture.
“This is the reason we are seeing shifts by large technology companies, such as Facebook’s multibillion-dollar rebranding to Meta. Social media agencies are looking to reach a new, emerging audience that has existed in this online universe of content, gaming and connection.”
New codes of youth behaviour
Twitch said its global research shows the old modalities of force-fed polished brand content are over and digital engagement is about being part of a supportive community. The next generation is leading cultural change and brands have to earn the right to communicate with them. “The rules of the game have changed for brands and marketers and we need to adapt,” said Gemma Battenbough, Twitch’s Head of APAC Brand Partnerships Studios.
This behavioural shift is based on five pillars – a move from:
Curated to authentic
Fixed to fluid
Exclusive to inclusive
Passive to collaborative
Disengaged to purposeful
Battenbough said these user characteristics are the key emerging cultural codes or communications lenses for brands to consider. The key for any Twitch streamer, whether running a tutorial, performing music or playing a game, is to be real. Twitch said creators contribute to this by communicating with their community in an open and honest way. By making live-streaming a cornerstone of its platform, personal relationships and brand experiences are delivered in a natural and organic manner. Live-streaming that delivers authentic experiences The company said an immersive live-streaming environment results in tightly knit communities that make 70% of viewers feel closer to Twitch streamers than YouTube vloggers.
Its research said having a two-way dialogue with content creators “feels unique as they can get up close and personal with streamers”. Furthermore, the research said users appreciate Twitch’s bespoke entertainment because they like to watch content that not everyone else watches (51%) and they enjoy being able to engage with a like-minded community, which they struggle to find elsewhere (50%). Twitch said its audience has now extended well beyond gaming geeks watching professional gamers play online, to live chat and concerts.
They are also luring users from other platforms – audiences follow a specific streamer or influencer from another service to Twitch, often for specific content or an event.
The most-watched streams have the feel of behind-the-scenes bonus footage, especially in the categories of music, beauty and body, arts/DIY Gaming, and e-sports. Battenbough believes there is another cultural or generational element about the Twitch user base, underpinned by the disintegration of truth on the Internet, in the past five to 10 years.
She points out Gen Z has grown up in an era of fake news, deep fakes, algorithmic echo chambers, election validity questions, climate change denial, and over-curated and perfected digital influencers. Gen Z prefers real, raw and authentic experiences – advertisers need to deliver brand experiences that are unvarnished and relatable to a generation that is harder to build trust with. “They expect brands to follow suit and embrace their human side and be spontaneous during (brand insertions in) live-streaming events.”
Engaging with the Twitchverse
So what is fascinating about Twitch beyond the values that the research provides? The platform is banking on increased virality and community features to propel its growth. It hopes that over the next decade, the community of Twitch users explodes as gaming becomes more mainstream and the community aspect to their platform reels in more young people. “They see content with which they can entice their friends onto Twitch and they will tell them about it,” Twitch said in its research report.
“This can be to engage them as a viewer or a streamer. The existing audience wants to get their friends to join them in watching content on topics they share an interest in or as they see topics on Twitch they know their friends are interested in.”
The opportunity for brands is to find their place at stream events and pay for influencers to subtly promote their product in a vulnerable, humorous or emotive manner. Twitch is also likely to cement a tighter relationship with its sister company, Amazon Ads, as new models for brand campaigns evolve. That will enable more brands to enter the Twitchverse.
But they have to take a deep breath and be ready for a new kind of brand engagement.
“Twitch viewers recognise that brands can show a playful, human and creative side. And that in fact, the more unusual the brand is, the more it can raise an eyebrow,” the report said. By engaging with popular Twitch streamers, brands will find that being brave with their creative will reap benefits with Gen Z and the next cohort of youth audiences.
The report continued: “The creative community (of Twitch streamers) are up for something a bit different as long as the brand has done their homework. Building your brand on the service will help to sustain lifetime value amongst Generation Twitch.”