That’s a wrap! After months of fast-paced planning and quick execution, our work on the USC Games Expo has finally paid off. Putting on an event takes a ton of work, especially one officially hosted by an iconic collegiate force with a drive to maintain its’ program’s No. 1 national ranking. Through diligent preparation and pitching, we helped USC Games navigate a strong cocktail of tight schedules and bureaucratic hurdles to capture the interest of media and influencers in LA – and beyond.
Tasked with amplifying awareness for the Expo, we decided to focus on highly targeted press outreach, event calendar placements and an event day press release, while pushing to have media and influencers attend the event rather than cover it remotely. With just a few weeks to pitch, we knew our outreach had to be punchy and impactful as asking contacts to attend a full-day event in the middle of the week (it’s a school!) is a big ask. We started by offering our contacts a glimpse into the future of gaming – a metaphor for the USC Games students who’d soon become professional developers – and a guided tour through the Expo to see highlight games and students. Through this alone, we captured interest from major outlets including The Hollywood Reporter, LA Times and UploadVR.
USC Games also expressed interest in attracting more of the public to the Expo to increase awareness and hopefully get prospective students and parents interested in the program. Naturally, we turned to the good ol’ fashioned local event calendars thousands of Angelenos reference each week to find something fun to do. Being a free and family-friendly event, we felt the USC Games Expo would fit wonderfully into event calendars and, sure enough, we were right. Major local outlets including LA Weekly, Discover Los Angeles and We Like L.A. added the Expo to their calendars, effectively introducing the event to a wide array of people who would otherwise have never even heard of it.
Another simple yet effective tactic we implemented was drafting and sending a press release to formally announce Expo details. While several outlets covered it, we were all especially stoked to see industry-focused titans VentureBeat and Gamasutra pick up the news. USC Games had industry folks right at the top of their “audiences we’d love to get in front of” list so these two hits alone were highly effective.
Our biggest endeavor with the Expo though was encouraging influencers and media to attend the event itself. We invited a pool of people to check out the Expo but spruced up the invite with special VIP access to a catered private lounge where they could hang out with and interview top-level developers and USC executives. We also offered guided tours of the sprawling Expo to show off highlighted games and student projects.
Beyond this, we really let the strength of USC Games and its student projects speak for themselves and turned our pitches into interest from 10 media and six top influencers. A few last-minute cancellations aside (always a bummer, but emergencies happen!), we had top writers from UploadVR, TechRaptor and more attend the Expo along with major influencers from GameXplain and ZombiUnicorn. We even convinced rising Twitch star Criken to attend after we found out and leveraged that he had actually gone to USC Games as a student – research pays off!
Getting coverage is only half the job though. We provided onsite support at the Expo to help manage the handful of media and influencers touring the event. It’s another simple tactic, but ensuring our targets had smooth access to any game they wanted to play or person to interview was a surefire way to drastically increase their view of the event. A little goes a long way when you’re trying to give a good impression and based on everyone’s ecstatic opinions of the Expo, we think it paid off. The sheer amount of people and work it takes to put on USC Games Expo is immense – our small part in it all would take thousands of words to describe in full. We’ll spare you the nitty gritty details though and get to the good stuff… coverage!
