Submitted by Viral NationAgency IPI Score 74/100

Going Global with the PUBG Mobile Star Challenge

Influencer Marketing

Viral Nation activated 142 influencers across five platforms to drive viewership for PUBG MOBILE's first global esports tournament, reaching millions across 15 countries and culminating in a live finale in Dubai.

3.5MReach
2.4MImpressions
1.5MInteractions
350KPre-show viewers

About the campaign

PUBG MOBILE was launching its first-ever global esports tournament, the PUBG MOBILE Star Challenge Global Finals in Dubai, with no prior event benchmark and a need to build simultaneous awareness across 15 countries, multiple languages and time zones. Viral Nation's answer to the tension between a centralised global broadcast and deeply local gaming fandom was to cast 13 prominent gaming influencers as country leaders, each officially representing their home nation at the tournament and turning one live event into 13 simultaneous local stories told in native languages.

Running from 2 November to 19 December 2018, the campaign activated 142 influencers across Twitch, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, producing 360 posts and 41 media placements. Country leaders documented their journeys to Dubai, filmed #PMSC2018 city tour content at the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Parks and Resorts, and headlined a six-hour YouTube pre-show produced with YouTube Space Dubai on 28 November, supported by translated digital cue cards in each creator's language, before the finals ran at Festival Arena from 29 November to 1 December.

Viral Nation reports 3.5 million reach, 2.4 million impressions and 1.5 million interactions, with the pre-show drawing 350,000 viewers in under a day, and the work was a Shorty Awards finalist and AVA Digital Awards winner.

Case in 60 seconds

PUBG MOBILE / Tencent Games was launching its first-ever global esports tournament, the PUBG MOBILE Star Challenge (PMSC) Global Finals in Dubai, with no prior event benchmark and the need to build simultaneous awareness across 15 countries, multiple languages and different time zones.

Mobile gaming audiences respond to creators who feel like members of their own national community; a single global broadcast cannot replicate that sense of local belonging, but a market-specific representative on the ground in Dubai can.

Viral Nation cast 13 prominent gaming influencers as country leaders, each representing their home nation at the tournament, turning a single live event into 13 simultaneous local stories told in native languages.

The agency ran the campaign across November and December 2018, activating 142 influencers across Twitch, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Country leaders documented their journeys to Dubai, filmed content at the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Parks and Resorts, and headlined a six-hour YouTube pre-show produced with YouTube Space Dubai, with translated digital cue cards in each creator's native language. A recap hype video was distributed through influencers and social publishers at the tournament's close.

The campaign generated 3.5M reach, 2.4M impressions and 1.5M interactions, with the pre-show drawing 350,000 viewers in under a day. The work was recognised as a Shorty Awards finalist in Gaming and Live Events, received AVA Digital Awards, and earned a Bronze at the Influencer Marketing Awards 2021.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

The primary audience was mobile gaming fans and esports viewers across 15 countries, reached via Viral Nation's multi-platform campaign. Each national market had distinct languages, time zones and existing creator communities, and country leader influencers represented 13 of the participating countries.
A global esports broadcast is inherently centralised, yet gaming fandom is deeply local and tribal. Audiences in different countries are unlikely to feel invested in a tournament held in Dubai unless they see a familiar face representing their country on the ground.
As Tencent described it, the PMSC was the first esports tournament for PUBG MOBILE, which meant there was no established audience or event equity to draw on. Building attendance and viewership required generating awareness for an event type with no prior benchmark.
PUBG MOBILE positioned itself as the host of a world-class esports moment, with Samsung Galaxy Note9 as a sponsor. The brand's role in the influencer campaign was to provide the event platform and assets while Viral Nation's creator network acted as the distribution layer across countries.
Gaming audiences already follow creators for live reactions and event commentary; casting those creators as official country representatives gives them a narrative role that motivates content production and gives audiences a personal stake in the tournament outcome. The six-hour pre-show operationalised this by scheduling a specific tune-in moment that converted ambient awareness into a measurable live audience.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • Six-hour YouTube pre-show livestream on PUBG MOBILE's YouTube channel, produced with YouTube Space Dubai and a UK production team
  • Pre-heat social content including country leaders documenting flights to Dubai
  • Dubai city tour content filmed at the Burj Khalifa, Burj Club and Dubai Parks and Resorts under #PMSC2018
  • Translated digital cue cards in each creator's native language, covering 15-plus languages
  • Post-tournament recap hype video distributed through influencers and social publishers
  • 360 posts across Twitch, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
  • 41 international media placements

Partners

  • Viral Nation (lead agency)
  • YouTube Space Dubai (production partner for pre-show)
  • UK production team (pre-show production)
  • International media contacts (livestream rebroadcast)

Participation mechanic

  • Country leaders documenting their journeys and representing national teams at the live event
  • Social publishers promoting tickets and livestream links with calls to action
  • Influencer-led #PMSC2018 content during the Dubai city tour
  • Live pre-show challenges and interviews with each country leader

Creator role

  • 13 country leaders (gaming KOLs from 13 markets) attended the Dubai finals as official national team representatives and produced native-language content throughout
  • Additional influencers across 15 countries and five platforms amplified promotional content and rebroadcast the livestream

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult typeConfidence
Total reach3.5MReachAgency reported
Total impressions2.4MImpressionsAgency reported
Total interactions1.5MEngagementAgency reported
YouTube pre-show viewers350,000 in under a dayViewershipAgency reported

Awards & Recognition

Award showYearCategoryResultSource
Shorty Awards2019GamingFinalist—
Shorty Awards2019Live EventsFinalist—
AVA Digital Awards2019PUBG Mobile work (specific category not disclosed in sources)Winner—
Influencer Marketing Awards2021PUBG MOBILE Promotion (Viral Nation & Tencent)Bronze—

Why Viral Nation's strategy worked

  1. 1

    Casting market-specific creators as national team representatives gave each of 13 local audiences a personal stake in a centralised global event, generating simultaneous demand across languages and time zones without a single unified broadcast being the only entry point. Viral Nation's case study credits this country-leader model as central to the strategy.

  2. 2

    Investing in translation across 15-plus languages and producing native-language cue cards for each creator lowered the barrier to engagement in markets where English-language gaming content has limited reach, as described in the Viral Nation case study.

  3. 3

    A produced, scheduled pre-show event on the brand's own YouTube channel converted diffuse awareness into a measurable live audience: the six-hour pre-show drew 350,000 viewers in under a day, giving the campaign a concrete viewership outcome to report.

  4. 4

    Pairing a large influencer roster (142 creators) with international media contacts and rebroadcast rights extended reach beyond the creator audience alone, producing 41 media placements alongside organic social content.

  5. 5

    For a first-of-its-kind event with no prior benchmark, building in a documentary content layer (creators filming their travel and the Dubai city tour) provided authentic narrative content that bridged the gap between pre-event promotion and live coverage.

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