Instead of just being the sponsor of League of Legends and pasting its logo everywhere, Kia listened to the community and tapped into what is meaningful to them. In a toxic community of players bashing and violating each other in chats while playing the game, Kia disrupted this behaviour and used its brand to turn the negative emotions into positive.

Kia turned toxic into positivity by bringing the sweetest player into the game of League of Legends.

Introducing: Sweet2Annie1

A social in-game experiment where a cute old granny makes it impossible for gamers

to spread their toxic behaviour. Just try to insult a friendly old lady. With her love spreading twitch channel and her sweet loving words she entered the world of League of Legends to play like every beginner and face these toxic players.

Within no-time her sweet attitude was so contagious that teammates and Twitch viewers showed their sweetness to support her to become better and better in League of Legends.

And it didn’t stop there. We secretly rewarded the 50 sweetest players with tickets for the League of Legend Championship in Ahoy, Rotterdam on April 14th, where they could spread their sweetness together with Annie.

Situation

Kia is sponsoring eSports and this is a relative new territory for the brand in the Netherlands. Within the gaming community in the Netherlands, Kia wants to reach and be relevant to a demography of 18-29 year olds.

Challenge

How do you create relevance for this specific community and hard to reach target audience as Kia?

Insight

League of Legends should be a game played by legends, but in reality, the negativity and toxic vocabulary was the one thing that stood out as legendary.

Strategy

Kia doesn’t sponsor just by adding its name, Kia sponsors by adding its brand.

Kia has The Power to Surprise. To put a smile on your face, to do more than expect, to amaze you. Kia is relevant by bringing surprise and joy to a negative community and therefore to make it accessible for all who want to play.

The main event of the League of Legends Championship (LEC) took place on Sunday April 14th in Ahoy Rotterdam. Kia had 50 tickets for a Give Away in the Netherlands.

Leading to the main event, we started Sunday 7th of April by starting our own Twitch channel: Sweet2Annie1. A lovely granny playing LOL for the first time and having fun doing it. Annie is the first League of Legends player contracted by Kia. Not because she is the best, but because she is the sweetest - and that’s what this community needs. Our channel was promoted by Fox Sports NL on their Twitch account and we teamed up with different gaming influencers and platforms in the Netherlands. Annie played the game three days in a row which was live on Twitch. The 50 sweetest players who joined her in the chat were awarded with a ticket to the LEC.

Within three days the twitch-channel of our favourite granny Sweet2Annie1 became the best watched League of Legends streaming channel in the Netherlands - and was best for three days in a row leading to the main event on April 14th in Ahoy, Rotterdam. It was top 5 fastest growing League of Legends channels in the Netherlands. Our beloved Annie became trending topic on popular gaming platforms like eSports Worldwide.

But, apart from those figures, Annie turned the tide; though she was a beginner in playing League of Legends, people tried to bully her, but they were corrected by the community. Sweetness is answered by sweetness. Sweetness ends toxicity. And that is where the brand Kia is relevant: the power to surprise and to put a smile on the faces of the people of the community.