#Playfaster Basecamp

For more than three years, Maak is the agency that facilitates the communication aimed at the gamer target group for Vodafone, which wants to be the network for gamers. A carefully built relationship between brand and target group ensures engaging content that is embraced by the target group. With the aim of making Vodafone the leading game telco. In addition to investing in that relationship with fitting ideas, we as a creative production agency are also fully responsible for the production of the content itself.

Our content is the cornerstone in how we portray Vodafone as the gaming telco towards the target group. So, the content must be striking and match their interests, but it must also contain a commercial message. Over the years, we have invested carefully in the relationship with the target group and we therefore did not start with pushing the commercial message initially. The last thing we want is to convey the feeling of "the cool dad who still uses YOLO". Instead, we take on the perspective of the target group, talk to the target group, test ideas and consult with influencers to see if it fits within their audience. We want to create quality entertainment content that embraces the gaming community and feels as little branded as possible.

In 2017 we started the game adventure of Vodafone with Get Owned, where we assembled a group of influencers with a love for gaming in a villa in the Ardennes (Belgium). Here they competed in real-life game challenges. The dynamic of the group naturally led to a lot of fun and pranks that sometimes were of Jackass-level. The audience loved it. In addition to the influencers, Tiësto joined this group by qualifying himself through an activation process. Partly due to the success of Get Owned and other seasons, he now has his own successful game channel on YouTube. At the time, this Vodafone game channel grew into the largest branded YouTube channel in the Netherlands, without the support of paid, with approximately 120,000 subscribers.

There is a difference between gaming and esports. Just like there is a difference between someone who plays professionally, someone who plays for fun, someone who likes to watch others who play for fun and someone who likes to watch professionals play. Consider this perspective with another sport. Watching bottom class football is different from playing bottom class football yourself. When in 2018 Vodafone Global announced a partnership with ESL, an organiser of international gaming tournaments, it was a logical consequence that the Netherlands will also focus on this from now on.

As a result, opted for a more serious route with Team #PlayFaster the following year. Here, ten fanatical gamers were given the opportunity to live and train like a true esporter. Their aim was to get a little closer to their dream to make a living out of their passion; Dota2. In this training program, participants were not only coached on skills but went through a complete personal development and came face-to-face with themselves. The top 5 went to ESL in Hamburg with their own team bus to meet their idols and ask them everything.

In the most recent season of #PlayFaster Basecamp, we made a combination of both formats. We combined the epicness of Get Owned with the die-hard love for gaming from Team #PlayFaster. In #PlayFaster Basecamp, the contestants do not sleep in a luxury villa, as they used to in the previous seasons, but have to battle against each other in the first challenge to conquer and build their own basecamp. All challenges that follow during the week of Basecamp are based on the games from the new mobile league of Vodafone: the Vodafone 5G ESL Mobile Open.