Esports competitions typically involve gaming fans in spectator mode only. Red Bull wanted to reinvent the way gaming communities could jump into the action by creating a new format of interactive entertainment on Twitch. The main challenge: get fans to engage with their favourite Twitch streamers in a truly immersive and collaborative way.

Red Bull Settle The Score is about finding out which streamer’s community reigns supreme on the Twitch battlefield by being the most passionate. They had to settle the score once and for all by helping their streamer dominate the competition.

The program harnessed the power of custom tech and Alternate Reality Game mechanisms to keep fans engaged during AND in between streams. Players had to join one of the streamers’ teams via a Twitch extension powered by LiveOps. Viewers were converted into active players by earning in-game currencies while watching the streams, answering trivia and completing missions.

The insight of creating a new entertainment propriety for the brand to reach gamers authentically was a powerful move, as it turned fan engagement into a branded currency. As fans played along with the athletes, their time spent with the program was turned into experience points they could use to win rewards.

Red Bull targeted Gaming Enthusiasts and Esport Gamers, the top gaming groups representing 38% of gamers, with the highest Red Bull consumption. They spend 7 to 14+ hours per week playing console and PC games, seeking great stories and competitive challenges. Gaming Enthusiasts explore a range of genres, while Esport Gamers focus on shooters, sports, and fighting games.

To engage this target audience, Red Bull devised an innovative program. A four-week battle was live-streamed on Twitch, featuring renowned game streamers SmallAnt and GrandPooBear. To win, they enlisted their fans to join their teams, turning the campaign into an immersive gaming experience utilizing advanced technology and transmedia. Red Bull athletes successfully captured the limited attention span of heavy gamers, drawing them into the action. This unique program provided an opportunity for gamers to participate instead of playing their other favourite games, enabling them to build connections within an highly engaged community.

This groundbreaking project marked the first time a Twitch extension connected to a physical object, utilizing real-time data from player behaviour to trigger messages and entertainment, thereby elevating the overall program's quality. Achieving this required seamless collaboration among a diverse range of talents, who successfully delivered on the technology within a tight timeframe of just three months. Game design, technological creativity, LiveOps, and outstanding production were crucial areas of expertise for the project's success.

We encountered a significant technical challenge with fragile LED cubes that couldn't be shipped. To overcome this, a team member personally delivered and installed the cubes to streamers in Calgary and Nevada in a record time. Another challenge was achieving real-time interaction between the Cube and viewers. We balanced factors such as refresh rate, webcam frame rate, upload speed, standard streaming delays on Twitch, and potential delays perceived by the viewers to ensure a seamless experience.

The event generated 3.7 million user interactions with an average of 5.25 hours watched per viewer (32 years of total watch time!), surpassing by 1 000% industry benchmarks. The Twitch extension alone captured 1.2 million interactions. These figures exceeded our already ambitious goals. The Settle the Score program generated 10 times the engagement results of the previous highest performing gaming program produced by Red Bull Gaming, with three times less budget. Hundreds of players send direct messages to Red Bull to thank them for the quality of the program and the energy the brand put into this.