Situation: Senior loneliness is more than a sad reality. It's a medical minefield, increasing the likelihood of dementia, heart disease and stroke. In 2019, a staggering 1 in 3 seniors reported feeling lonely. In 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, senior loneliness became an even bigger problem.

Brief: How do we use technology to combat senior loneliness during lockdown?

Objective: Introduce seniors to an online gaming community that keeps them connected and entertained.

Creative idea: Bring isolated Boomers and Gen Z-ers together to battle loneliness and each other by playing Counter Strike live on Twitch on World Senior Citizen's Day.

Strategy: Fight senior loneliness through online gaming.

The lockdown was hard on everyone. But seniors more than most. Cut off from friends and family, many seniors suffered from depression, anxiety as well as more serious mental health issues.

On the other hand, younger people were fairing significantly better. Why? Because their comfort with technology kept them connected to friends and family and entertained through gaming.

So, we wanted to bring these two unlikely groups together to fight senior loneliness and each other with esports. The catch? Seniors don’t game.

First, we looked for isolated seniors who had never gamed before. And let's face it, that's pretty much all of them. Unless you count shuffle board. (We don't.) The hard part was teaching them to turn on the PC. Then, in the course of a couple weeks, they went from powering on the PC to making kill shots on Counter-Strike, increasing the body count and sense of connection every step of the way.

In the weeks leading up the event, we launched WWE-style promo videos on Twitch, challenging young gamers around the world to play the seniors. On the day of the event, the battle waged live on Twitch. And young gamers stepped up to the challenge. Many of them didn't live to fight another day. However, they did help breathe new life into isolated seniors - proving to everyone involved that getting older doesn't mean getting lonelier.

The Get Got by a Gran Challenge garnered more than three times the average Twitch viewership and our WWE-style challenge vids got almost a million views.

While all that's great, we're most proud of the impact it had on senior health. Not only did we significantly reduce loneliness and increase a sense of connection in the three seniors we trained, we showed the senior community at large what’s possible with the help of technology.

Oh, and the press was pretty impressed too.

“The world’s oldest esports team is gaming their way to longer lives.” -CNN Health

“The team found something unexpected: a welcoming community and a loyal legion of fans to cheer them on.” -CNN

“The next generation of competitive gamers is...over 60?” -The Wall Street Journal.