Dive Brief:
- TikTok will premiere a new content series on May 9 in partnership with Enthusiast Gaming and beauty brand E.l.f. Cosmetics, according to a press release. The live series, entitled TikTok Gamers Got Talent, will follow contestants over seven weeks as they compete for a chance to win $25,000 and E.l.f. products.
- Consumers in the U.S. and Canada can enter by posting a TikTok video with the hashtag #TikTokGGT and submitting it to GamersGotTalent.com through May 2. Once 20 contestants are chosen, they will share their talents live for a rotating panel of judges selected from the gaming and social media communities. The first episode will feature all female judges.
- E.l.f.'s participation in the new content series aims to reinforce the beauty brand's commitment to what it dubs "Gameup," a term for the intersection of gaming and makeup, and empowering women within the historically male-dominated gaming world.
Dive Insight:
The new talent show builds on a year-old partnership between TikTok and Enthusiast Gaming, and may help the social video app court a growing community of esports and gaming fans. The #Gaming hashtag has generated more than 105 billion views on TikTok globally, Head of Global Marketing Nick Tran said in a statement, suggesting there is significant interest in the topic among the app's user base.
Through the ongoing content series, TikTok can tap into the sizable network of Enthusiast Gaming, which reaches more than 300 million monthly users worldwide, per the company.
For E.l.f., the effort is a foray into connecting with TikTok's gamer community. The beauty brand has experimented with the social video app for years, previously going viral multiple times with the help of catchy, original music. Now, it's parlaying that success into bigger marketing investments on TikTok while expanding gamer-focused initiatives.
E.l.f. in November 2020 teamed with Kathleen Belsten, a popular Twitch streamer who goes by the name Loserfruit, or Lufu, to strengthen its position among Gen Z gamers. A social survey conducted by the beauty brand found 70% of its followers play video games, while 65% like watching others stream gaming content. Lufu has the second-largest audience for a female gamer on Twitch, per Lineups.com data cited by E.l.f., and has about 8 million followers across social platforms. Zeroing in on gamers could differentiate E.l.f. among the crowded beauty category while helping it to reinforce connections in a potentially overlooked market for cosmetics brands.
The TikTok Gamers Got Talent partnership includes social-oriented media that will roll out across Enthusiast Gaming's platforms, including product and logo placements, influencer promotions and custom promotional content airing on Luminosity Gaming's Twitch and social channels.
