Schwab wanted to capture the attention of gamers, but they had never really talked to gamers before. In order to bring value to the community, we were able to identify a natural intersection between real world and in-game economies.

In many video games, economies are a core driver to winning/success. And Schwab knows finance. So we got to thinking - how can we use our knowledge to help gamers better understand in-game economies while also maybe helping them in real life?

The objectives were to show gamers that Schwab gets them and in doing this, elevate awareness and consideration among this audience.

As experts in REAL world economies, we wanted to use our knowledge to help gamers conquer in-game economies.

We launched two Twitch livestreams with prominent World of Warcraft (WoW) Twitch streamers, Bajheera and Xaryu. Schwab’s Chief Global Investment Strategist and Executive Gamer, Jeff Kleintop joined the streams to help guide the conversation and connect gaming to finance.

Together Jeff and the Twitch streamers explained IRL financial principles through the lens of WoW. We saw this as a great opportunity to draw parallels between IRL and in-game to help gamers get rich in WoW, and at the same time explain the overlap between the real world economy and WoW economy and how that can be of use in real life.

Schwab wanted to reach younger, financially motivated gamers and relate to them in an unexpected way.

In order to do this, Schwab had to prove they understood the audience and give them something back in return.

Using World of Warcraft due to its complex in-game economy, Schwab's executive gamer, Jeffrey Kleintop, partnered with prominent WoW streamers and together drew parallels between the WoW economy and the IRL economy. Schwab was not only able to help gamers hack the WoW economy, but they also offered some real-life financial wisdom in the process and led gamers to realize they may know more about finances than they think.

GET: Gamers

TO: Spark an interest in Schwab

BY: Offering education both in-game and IRL

To reach increasingly harder to find young investor segments, Schwab tested new programming on the gaming platform Twitch​. Conscious of entry into a highly opinionated and vocal environment, Schwab used a combination of standard and custom advertising to reach this new audience​.

Schwab built credibility in the gaming space using two reputable WoW gamers in Bajheera and Xaryu who have captive audiences and fit our audience profile.

Jeffrey Kleintop is Schwab’s Chief Global Investment Strategist who regularly appears on CNBC, and also happens to be an avid gamer and WoW enthusiast. To earn a credible seat at the table with this audience and with Twitch, Jeffrey and Xaryu/Bajheera combined helped capture the audience’s attention.

The main feature of this program were two, 2 hour livestreams on Twitch. The first stream with Bajheera was on 8/29/22 and the 2nd with Xaryu was on 9/15/22. Combined, the streams had over 1.5M views.

The Twitch livestreams drew strong interest from new audiences. We ultimately got gamers talking about finance and the results exceeded expectations.

The campaign delivered a full funnel impact for Charles Schwab with significant lifts across the board, outperforming norms for most KPIs.

A custom program featuring Jeffrey Kleintop and WoW influencers drove interest well above Twitch Benchmarks.

Consideration intent improved among all age groups and was primarily driven by those who were making investment decisions themselves.

Personal relevance trended higher, especially among the younger demo 18-34 year olds who agreed that it was a brand for them.

We also saw significant lifts among those who make their own investment decisions along with piquing interest among others.

We received:

1.5M+ views between the 2 streams

4M+ mins watched between 2 streams

31k unique viewers at a single point in time

+20% ​average views over benchmark ​