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In honor of Minute Media’s 10th Anniversary, we would like to take a look at the last ten years through the lens of our unique content brands, highlighting some of their key milestones throughout the last decade. This blog is dedicated to our esports and gaming brand, DBLTAP.
In 2017, Minute Media, having already seen years of success with our flagship brand 90min, decided to expand into a completely new vertical - esports and gaming. The leadership team could see that the esports and gaming industry was growing and ripe with commercial opportunities. More importantly, however, the passion behind the gamers and fans mirrored the same passion that our founders, team and 90min audience had for global football. With this in mind, the team decided to launch DBLTAP, a brand new content brand focused on bringing every aspect of the game to life - from the casual game of FIFA to behind the scenes of a CS:GO Major and everything in between.
Shortly after launching, DBLTAP attended their first esports event, DreamHack Masters in Las Vegas. The event, which featured esports teams from all around the world competing in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, gave the brand the opportunity to network with gamers and esports organizations as well as be seen as a true player within the space.
In 2018, DBLTAP hit another important milestone by launching #DBLTAPFanSquad, a bespoke activation at global esports events that aims to put fans at the center of the experience. The initiative, born out of the brand’s commitment to giving fans more access to the world of esports, has enabled event attendees to meet, play and learn more about popular esports players, effectively bringing them closer to the industry they love.
Furthering their involvement in esports events, DBLTAP appeared on stage and in-stream at the European Championships Series’ Fifth Season Final in the summer of 2018. During this event, the DBLTAP team was able to conduct exclusive interviews with the finalists, furthering their brand awareness and fostering important connections with the players themselves.
After just one year of operation, DBLTAP hit another huge milestone - being named a finalist for ‘Best Esports Coverage Site’ at the Esports Awards. This was the first instance of industry recognition that the brand received and proved to be one of the first stepping stones into solidifying DBLTAP’s position within the gaming and esports world.
In 2019, already having seen great success within its first two years of existence, DBLTAP decided to take its visual identity to the next level through a brand refresh. Taking a look at their current branding, which was originally very similar to 90min’s in color, the team decided to break away a bit from their original design ideas and create something more connected to the industry it serves. The result was a brand new logo, color scheme and brand language.
Building off of their industry recognition, DBLTAP soon after secured a branded content partnership with Kia and League of Legends, creating an innovative and fun campaign entitled ‘Driving Your Game’ as well as an activation in Berlin at the League of Legends Championship. The campaign saw esports players learning how to drive, discussing what it’s like to be a professional gamer and diving into their personal pre-game rituals all within Kia cars. The campaign was so well received that it garnered even more industry recognition for DBLTAP in the Digiday Marketing & Advertising Awards (named a finalist in 2019) and The Drum Online Media Awards (named a finalist in 2020).
Throughout their experience within the esports and gaming industry, as well as with the players themselves, it was clear to DBLTAP that the issues around mental health were not necessarily getting the coverage it needed from other editorial outlets. With professional gaming being relatively new in mainstream popularity, it made sense that the effects of the profession on mental health were not fully understood. DBLTAP took insights from individuals within the space and created a three-part in-depth series around mental health in esports to shine a light on the importance of good mental health practices within all areas of gaming.
You can read more on this series here.
Furthering their role as a storyteller within the esports and gaming communities, DBLTAP launched a new editorial series entitled ‘Developers of Color’ in the summer of 2020, specifically aimed at giving people of color a platform to be honest about their experiences within the gaming world. This series featured multiple interviews with developers of color shining a light on the issues they face within gaming - from bullying, prejudice and micro-aggressions in a professional setting to discrimination within games themselves (i.e. a lack of positive representation for certain gorups, a lack of diversity of skin color in creating avatars, etc.) and called for better understanding and positive change within the industry.
You can read more on this series here.
Building off of their ‘Developers of Color’ series, DBLTAP decided to take their experience creating and executing the series to New York’s AdWeek, leading a panel with other industry experts to discuss the importance of diversity in esports. This panel was a huge milestone for the brand because, not only did they get to discuss the current issues within the industry - a topic very near to the team’s heart - but it also gave DBLTAP the opportunity to prove that storytelling can and does create moments for people to foster greater understanding.
While DBLTAP may not have been around for the full ten year journey, their contributions to the growth of Minute Media cannot be overstated. DBLTAP has shown tremendous growth over the last four years, and we are confident that there is no end in sight.
