A testimonial for Mettlestate – or: Why you want the Captain, not just the platform.
Some partners you hire. Mettlestate, not a chance. If you want to work with this crew, you've got to enlist.
I've sat through dozens of agency pitches, just like you have. Most of them talk audience demographic like a spreadsheet counting rocks; reach, impressions, clicks. Uninspiring & lifeless. Mettlestate talks like people who've actually held a gaming event together with little more than duct tape, a dozen cans of Monster, a couple walkie-talkies, & their never say die attitude. Because that's exactly what they've done, time & time again.
Seven million registered gamers on the platform.
150+ campaigns.
A scene they didn't so much join as forge into existence, map by map, season on season, since as far back as the 2010s.
They've come out of every challenge, every event, having pulled off another epic success. Not dissimilar to being in a squad far away from home, pinned down under fire, looking unlikely to make it the distance in an ESL Battlefield 4 Nation's Cup fixture.
Barry "Anthrax" Louzada is the Mettlestate squad leader that the entire house is built on (specifically; his anger, bones, & once-radio-worthy voice). This is the part the deck doesn't tell you. At Mettlestate, the comms are relentless & the reads are macro; someone in that building is always watching the whole board while the rest of the market stares at its own lane. When we pushed Redragon & the Syntech brands through them for the Syntech Masters, it didn't feel like a media buy. It felt like we were dropped into the middle of a warzone with fire support. The market didn't stand a chance.
(Six years. I keep snagging on six. Something about a lineup that simply would not lose, six seasons straight, back when the flag being planted was on Caspian Border & not a client logo. But I digress. Premium partner. Focus, Chris.)
What you're actually buying is conviction. PCBuilder, Gizzu, Xiaomi, Redragon: Brands that live or die on whether the community believes you're one of them. Mettlestate makes them believe, because the man at the top didn't read about the trenches in a case study. He was infantry. Aggressive. The loudest voice on the server; one more South African that Europe learned to respect the year a squad of ruffians nicked the Nation's Cup & legged it home.
Sorry. Testimonial. Right.
The point stands: You want a partner who's been the underdog & won anyway. Who has *literally* screamed so loudly, esports came into existence. You want someone who went from washing cars to running the continent's biggest esports operation without losing the plot *twice* on what the players actually feel. That's not a vendor. That's a Captain and Crew who happen to have a company.
Forged by gamers, for gamers. They mean it, & I've seen the receipts; Syntech Masters, Comic Con, rAge Expo, on their wild online cups - alongside a bevvy of brand logos most local agencies would kill for.
Would I enlist with Mettlestate to storm the bunkers again? Let's do it. Friday, 4:30pm.
Ten out of ten.