Honda's First Partnership in Esports
Team Liquid & Honda
Through activations like Honda Stage and the Honda Civic Tour, Honda has always connected with young consumers through their passion points. In 2019, passion points expanded to include esports. In sculpting the partnership, our greatest challenge would be figuring out how a non-endemic brand could connect with gamers. The answer: lean into Honda’s core values of imagination, determination, and perseverance. In 2019, we announced Honda as the Official Automotive Partner of Team Liquid. The anchor of the partnership would be Level Up -- a six-part docuseries that followed three Team Liquid rosters who came up short in competition in 2018. Through shared attributes of imagination, determination, and perseverance, the teams would either claw their way to victory or risk another shortcoming. In 2020, we evolved the story to spotlight players instead of full rosters. The same attributes, but focused on the origin stories of players. Origins, driven by Honda, tells the story of six players who have had to pioneer their career paths as the first generation of esports athletes. Honda’s branded content strategy is supported by a comprehensive partnership strategy, inclusive of a prominent jersey patch, custom esports commercials featuring Team Liquid players, vehicle integration, and experiential activation at TwitchCon 2019, and branded social media content for always-on messaging.
