United Esports x DigitalOcean

With the goal of fostering the growth and innovation for the next generation of global developers and entrepreneurial communities, DigitalOcean knew they needed to reach a new demographic. Knowing there is a strong crossover between the developer and gaming communities, DigitalOcean partnered with leading esports media organization United Esports, to develop a creative and marketing strategy that would allow them to reach their new target demo - gamers.

United Esports set its sights on finding an audience that shared many overlapping characteristics with current DigitalOcean users, including skewing older, more educated, and reporting higher incomes. With their expert insight into the gaming community, they refined the target audience down into a series of sub-niches based on game titles and genres and it became clear that a strong audience for this activation was the online chess community.

To build DigitalOcean’s credibility within competitive online chess, it needed to meet the audience in an organic and authentic way. By becoming the leading sponsor of the 2022 Bullet Chess Championship, an event that gathers the most elite players to compete across a two-week period, and partnering with key streamers in the space, UE knew they could successfully showcase DigitalOcean’s value proposition and offering, and build affinity with the community.