Gemma Battenbough, Twitch’s international brand partnership studio lead for EMEA and APAC, emphasises that brands should bring value to Twitch audiences without taking themselves too seriously.
Speaking to Mediaweek, Battenbough explained that while Twitch welcomes all brands, success on the Amazon-owned streaming platform requires a thoughtful approach.
“If you’re a brand, you can’t just come in and slap your name on it and expect to have a memorable, high-attention response,” she said.
“We encourage brands to really think about and work with us to do this well. We walk them through how to create something that the community can play with, or a streamer can do, whether that’s like a branded extension that makes it playable or even content format that we would develop.”
Battenbough leads a full-service creative studio at Twitch with creative strategists, producers, talent experts and project managers. The studio works with brands to help them bring their brand story to life on Twitch in a way that’s authentic for the platform’s main demographic, which is 18 to 34-year-olds.
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An example of Twitch’s tailored approach is ahm’s “Healer Main” activation. The campaign leaned into the idea of supporting people, and mixed in the healthcare aspect of the brand with the activation. The campaign partnered with streamers, influencers and philanthropists including Panda, who’s known for going around Melbourne giving backpacks filled with supplies and food to homeless people.
“It’s so important to work with talent that really represents your brand at that sort of core level,” she said.
When it comes to how Twitch sells itself to advertisers, Battenbough says it’s all about attention.
“Advertisers are looking for places to be creative, to have memorable conversations and tell their brand stories. On Twitch, that’s something you can do in a real, long-form way with a highly leaned-in community who are in the moment,” she said.
“They’re actively creating the content, not just passively watching it. Users spend on average 3.5 hours in Australia watching Twitch, and it’s a really long time compared to the attention seen on TikTok or Instagram.
Despite the narrative that Gen Z’s attention span is shrinking, Battenbough believes Twitch proves otherwise: “If the content is good and made for them, they’ll stay.”
While Twitch is popularly known as a gaming streaming platform, the service has made strides in recent years to cater to a more casual audience. This shift accelerated during COVID-19, when musicians and artists sought alternatives to in-person events and found new audiences on Twitch.
The platform’s ‘Just Chatting’ category might involve some light gaming, but it mostly consists of streamers interact with their communities in ‘real-time, often without playing games. US-based creators like Kai Cenat have taken this category by storm, where each of his streams are events in themselves with high production values and celebrity guests, all taking place in his bedroom.
Kai Cenat and fellow streamer Fanum on a recent stream with John Cena
Twitch’s content offerings continue to expand post-COVID. The platform now allows DJs to use a catalog of around 6 billion licensed tracks, thanks to agreements with major record labels. This music integration opens doors for branded content, as seen in Charli XCX’s recent livestream launch of her remix album.
“Twitch’s content landscape has grown significantly,” Battenbough said. “We expect it to keep expanding, creating even more opportunities for brands.”
Charli XCX at her live-streamed listening party for the BRAT remix album