YouTube is already a household name, known for boasting a myriad of online video content. However, this platform is not top of mind when it comes to gaming specifically, facing stiff competition in this sector. We know that YouTube already has the chops for entertainment. But the challenge here would be to amp up two key metrics:

1. Conversation around YouTube’s growing gaming content range

2. Association in Southeast Asia as a prime destination for gaming content and community.

For this, YouTube needed a stand-out activation to win over and build further brand love amongst this era’s most coveted and vocal audience: Gen Zs. And what better way to do so than bringing Southeast Asia’s top game, Free Fire, and this audience’s favourite creators together?

Gaming is no longer just sitting at a screen. Content and community must go beyond the game. Leaning into Gen Zs’ love of the authentic and new, Fire Up The Fun brought Free Fire to the real world.

With a total of 97.8 million subscribers combined, we featured 12 of the region’s hottest creators such as Jess No Limit and Saaih Halilintar from Indonesia, and Sunflowava and Jubjang from Thailand.

We took Free Fire’s iconic elements - the skyboard, dances, loot boxes and Gloo walls - and translated them into a real life game show. Free Fire’s chaos and cooperation ruled as we paired the gaming creators with lifestyle creators by country, with the latter being guided by the former through the challenges.

Launched as a live broadcast, we enabled fans to commune in the chat as they watched the creators battle it out in the final video.

Gen Zs are always hungry for new: new trends, new buzzwords and new experiences. In gaming, this means they are always looking for new ways to experience their favourite games.

Unlike its competitors, YouTube remains one of the most accessible platforms for gaming content. And with a myriad of creators and multiple formats, the possibilities are endless.

Hence, we leveraged all our platform strengths, together with the popularity of Free Fire, and the creative superpowers of content creators, to bring a whole new gaming experience and level up the brand love for YouTube.

By amping up the joy, mayhem and teamwork, we drove perception of YouTube as a gaming content platform by dishing out Fire Up The Fun: a grand gaming activation with a twist.

With production taking place in Jakarta, we worked with key production partners to bring the iconic Free Fire elements to life. From coordinating professional parachuters, constructing sets and props and to setting up the live creator communications, all hands were on deck to bring all aspects of production to perfection.

We filmed two iterations of the game show with Indonesian and Thai creators. Gaming creators dialed in and communicated with their partners through headsets as they worked through the stations together, battling out for Booyah.

To drive anticipation, we released teaser videos for each country, with our creators posting videos true to their unique content styles on their own channels to further drive fan engagement. For Indonesia, we also created an in-platform gaming content hub and VOD playlists for Free Fire enthusiasts of all levels, which also weaponised YouTube Shorts due to our target audience’s preference for short form content.

The activation was streamed live on YouTube, reaching viewership numbers that shattered expectations. We reached 53.4 million Gen Zs in Indonesia and Thailand. Our Indonesia and Thailand livestreams hit 5.2 million views in total, and the accompanying activation promotional assets garnered 50.7 million views across Shorts, VOD, and Live.

The Indonesian activation teaser even became the most viewed video in YouTube Indonesia’s history with 14.2 million views

All in all, we levelled up YouTube as the go-to platform for fun and entertaining gaming content. If Fire Up The Fun demonstrated anything, it’s that when it comes to gaming marketing, the sky really is the limit.