[DOCUMENT TITLE]

[Document subtitle]

[School]
[Course title]
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Objective of this report is to apply a Trend Funnel Framework from ‘The Trend
Forecaster’s Handbook’ by Martin Raymond to develop a creative and collaborative idea for a
gaming-related product or service innovation. The chosen trend of ‘Women Representation
and Visibility in competitive Esports’ is explored throughout the report through the six zones
of the Trend Funnel which are:

• Zone 1: Trend Identity

• Zone 2: Trend Drivers
• Zone 3: Typology/Target Consumer Group
• Zone 4: Aspirational Touch Points
• Zone 5: Trend Location
• Zone 6: Brand/Product/Retail Opportunities

The main issues that arise in this trend are sexism, harassments, hate/toxicity, and overall lack
of visibility for women in gaming, thus, arise amazing opportunities for brand interventions that
boost the profile of women esports athletes. In this ‘male-dominated’ industry, women have
shown more engagement with this field over the past few years with data on trend forecasting
showcasing the further acceleration in growth for women engagement in esports for the next
several years to come.
With the rise in technology and streaming services, esports continue to grow and excel with
the digital world that is transforming around the globe. Millennials are constantly engaging with
the gaming industry showing a space full of opportunities which will be discussed in this report.
An opportunity of a branding concept called ‘Women Empowered Gaming’ with a mission to
‘create and safe space with a welcoming community for women to socialise and collaborate
with females all around the globe through competitive tournaments and fun events’ was
created through the Trend Funnel.

1|Page
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY....................................................................................................................1

TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................... 2

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 3

TREND FUNNEL FRAMEWORK ..................................................................................................... 5

Zone 1: Trend Identity ................................................................................................................. 5

Zone 2: Trend Drivers ................................................................................................................. 8

Zone 3: Target Consumers ........................................................................................................ 11

Zone 4: Aspirational Touch Points ........................................................................................ 15

Zone 5: Trend Location ............................................................................................................. 16

Zone 6: Opportunities ............................................................................................................... 19

CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................. 22

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 22

2|Page
 INTRODUCTION
The world of gaming has progressively with innovations that have changed to look and the way
we can preserve gaming altogether. Currently, the Video Gaming Industry is estimated to be
worth $178.73 Billion in 2021, which is an increase of 14.4% from 2020 (We PC 2022). This is
also seen to be a big difference from the predictions in 2016, forecasting a total worth of
$90.07 Billion for the same period – a huge 76.8% difference between the two figures (We
PC 2022). This suggests this industry will continue to see a further acceleration in growth (We
PC 2022) with ‘recent forecasts are estimating the video gaming industry to be worth $268
Billion by 2025’ (We PC 2022). With the rise of technical innovation, streaming, esports and
expansion of market demographics, this industry has taken a new scope. Esports is a computer-
based sport played by professional players or gamers in formal competition between teams via
an electronic system (Haiqal & Yusoff 2021). Competitive Esports is seen to be the future of
gaming and is seen to reach billions of dollars in the next several years with an impressive
fanbase and the rise of popularity in streaming services such as YouTube and Twitch (Abdulla
2022).

Online connectivity now allows players around the world to compete in official tournaments,
create teams and create a fanbase. However, gaming and esports has been male dominated
which is slowly making a change to include a more diverse representation in this industry.
Women make up half of the gaming players and audiences but only a small apportion are part
of the professional esports scene (Owayo 2022). Women are currently so underrepresented in
this field despite out of 34.3 million people who play video games at least casually, 47% are
women (Owayo 2022). Women underrepresented in esports can be due to several reasons
such as missing role models, fear of sexism, gender-specific socialisation and the non-
perception of women as a target group of the gaming industry (Owayo 2022). The number of
women working in any type of role in esports is estimated at around 5% with the space well
overdue for brand interventions that will boost the profile of professional women esports
athletes (Errens 2020). Although there has been a progression for women in gaming and
esports over the past few years, sexism is still a big problem in online multiplayer games which
sets a starting point for professional competitive gaming (Errens 2020). In order to raise
awareness for women in this field, women need more visibility, to help with this, organisations
and brand partners are implementing women-only tournaments to raise female profiles and

3|Page
interest in competitive gaming (Errens 2020). There have been studies on the difference
between male and female esports athletes. It was observed that more aggressive and violent
which are based on war, action and other violent elements are more appealing to male players
and that they are more competitive with more strive to rank up (Haiqal & Yusoff 2021). These
features were seen to represent more of a masculine image and the capabilities of female
players are often underestimated but with recent trends, people are trying to get rid of this
stereotype completely (Haiqal & Yusoff 2021).

Source: Hardcore Gamers Unified, < https://www.hgunified.com/home/international-esports-tournament.html >

To filter out extrinsic ideas and insights, marketers can go through trend forecasting and the
trend funnel framework. Trend forecasting is used to develop relevant products whilst
identifying market trends to fit consumer demands before they come into existence (Data
Hunters 2022). The importance of trend forecasting is it uses analysis of consumer insights to
strengthen and monitor your market and take advantage of opportunities that arise (Data
Hunters 2022). The transformation from insight to an idea and/or product will allow marketers,
designers, innovators, and entrepreneurs to precisely be more creative and collaborative to
develop a new idea (Pallent 2022). Through ‘The Trend Forecaster’s Handbook’ author Martin
Raymond introduced a relevant framework called The Trend Funnel to encourage a team to
process through carefully defined stages/zones which filter extraneous ideas and lead to
making a more refined decision/idea (Raymond 2010, p. 189-190). These six zones are:

• Zone 1: Trend Identity

• Zone 2: Trend Drivers
• Zone 3: Typology/Target Consumer Group
• Zone 4: Aspirational Touch Points
• Zone 5: Trend Location
• Zone 6: Brand/Product/Retail Opportunities

4|Page
After the development of each zone through discussion, debate and synthesizing of ideas,
teams are allowed to put together their accrued knowledge and insights to kick-start their idea
to the next development process (Raymond 2010, p. 189-190).

TREND FUNNEL
FRAMEWORK
Zone 1: Trend Identity

Esports is seen to be a newly introduced concept however ‘virtual esports’ has been around
since the first computer was invented and game consoles were first introduced (Chikhani
2015). Although, for women's esports, it was only in 2013 that the first all-female League of
Legends team, ‘Siren’ debuted to promote gender equality in esports only to receive appalling
backlash and harassment (Chan 2021). Despite this, the rise of females in esports began to
become more apparent and saw the growth of women participating in more competitive events
and tournaments (Chan 2021). In spite of this growing trend, females still believe they are
underrepresented in this field with 62% of women interested in esports believing that
companies in the industry fail to market to them effectively (Teknos 2022).

Despite the emerging trend of women entering the gaming industry, the underrepresentation
of professional female esports athletes in esports remains significantly conspicuous.

5|Page
Images that showcase the history of esports, first few displays competitive tournaments held over 20 years ago
with mostly men competing. Compared to over the last few years where women have been able to participate in
big events with huge live audiences and support around the globe.

Video game spaces may be getting more diverse but the main pressure points to this trend
would be the reports of sexism, harassment, and toxicity. Women face these challenges
constantly and when data was collected asking about the negative gender-related experiences
they’d encountered, ‘more than half of women said they'd received verbal abuse (51%),
followed by mansplaining (43%), harassment (42%) and unwanted sexual or romantic advances
(40%). Sixty-five percent of women reported doxxing (the act of publishing personal
information about a person on a public forum) had become more frequent in recent years, and
another 59% said the same of both stalking and mansplaining’ (Frontier 2020) This behaviour
makes women demotivated to be around competitive gaming spaces but the interest to
compete is still very high.

6|Page
Source: Frontier

Source: The Guardian < https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/oct/24/hey-dude-do-this-the-last-resort-

for-female-gamers-escaping-online-abuse >

7|Page
Zone 2: Trend Drivers

STREAMING PLATFORMS

A big driver of the women in esports trend would be streaming platforms such as Twitch and
YouTube. Having easy and accessible ways to watch and interact with esports individuals and
organisations makes it an exciting and popular way to showcase competitive gaming. Not only
is it a great way to stream tournaments and gameplay, but it is revenue for organisations and
esports athletes. Major tech corporations such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have
invested heavily in purchasing and developing tools to improve the game and streaming
experience (Hippeau 2020).
Streaming platforms are also the main way the consumer market will engage with this trend
and a great way to continue to raise the visibility of women in esports (Duram 2019).

“One of the most powerful things we can all do is to start raising the visibility of the
women already in the space—to tell their stories and highlight their accomplishments so
that those women on the outside looking in see examples of people like them.”

(Duram 2019)

8|Page
In Southeast Asia, female esports streamers successfully garner millions of followers, with
notable names include Alodia Gosiengfiao (Philippines), Kimi Hime (Indonesia), and Misthy
(Vietnam) (Ong 2019). In North America and Australia, names such as Kyedae, Katsumi,
Natarsha and Aniemal all compete in competitive tournaments representing big organisations
and stream to a wide audience with a large following.

COVID19

Covid19 has accelerated the growth of many trends within the gaming industry with many
‘everyday’ people starting to get into gaming whether it is mobile gaming, competitive gaming,
or virtual reality - many people have tried some type of gaming that is closely related to the
timing of COVID19 (Barr & Copeland-Stewart 2021). People were able to spend ‘’more time
on multiplayer [games]’ due to having more time whilst staying at home during the lockdown
(Barr & Copeland-Stewart 2021). This would mean females were likely to venture out of their
comfort zone and try new games and get into esports - hence why the trend has been becoming
more popular.

Source: ECentralSports, Girl enjoying playing games through covid lockdown. < https://ecentralsports.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/07/covid-games >

9|Page
Source: Frontier, data shows that 47% of women started playing during COVID19. The importance of gaming
increased and so did their social life with making more friends online.

SOCIAL GAMING

With the increase of multiplayer players in games during COVID19, many have found it a way
to connect with new friends and communities creating a social outlet in gaming (Hippeau
2020). Social gaming through multiplayer competitive games has given the target market to
engage with this trend and created interest in getting into esports.

10 | P a g e
Source: Nielsen Esports Fan Insights 2018 (Nielson 2019)

Source: The Daily Californian, Female gamer using discord to speak with friend while playing competitive game,
Counter Strike. https://www.dailycal.org/2021/03/08/girl-gamers-rise-up-combatting-sexism-in-the-gaming-
community/ >

11 | P a g e
Zone 3: Target Consumers

The world of esports has been taking a huge and growing amount of young people’s time and
attention and it is important to recognise who and how to connect to the young target market.
The target market of ‘Millennials’ and ‘Generation Z’ are more digitally advanced regarding their
interactions with digital and social media as they grew up with modern technology (Anic 2018).
This audience is diverse with the industry and are consumers who are passionate about digital
technologies and tools as over 32% of those watching esports are between 16 and 24 years of
age (Zhang 2020). This target audience are shown to be engaging to not only tournaments but
live streams and other interactive platforms with internet users spending over 6 billion hours
watching esports in 2018, increasing over time (Zhang 2020).

The target consumer group are Millennials and Gen Z females who currently interact with
gaming, whether it is Action/Adventure, First-Person Shooters, MMORPG/MOBA (Massively
multiplayer online role-playing game/Multiplayer online battle arena) or Sports. Most female
gamers play casually but are just as enthusiastic about gaming as their male counterparts
(Buckle 2018) and are likely to take a large interest in competitive gaming.

Images to help illustrate our target consumer group of young females. They are competitive, collaborative, social,
fun, and creative.

12 | P a g e
 CONSUMER PERSONA

Female gamers are seen to be motivated, competitive, have the drive to improve and meet
goals. They are seen to be involved in watching esports to learn tips and tricks from
professional which give them the drive to improve and be involved in the scene themselves
(Nielson 2019). Female esports fans are seen to be heavily interested in connecting, meeting,
and socializing with other fans and communities compared to males (Nielson 2019).

Source: Nielsen Esports Fan Insights 2018 (Nielson 2019)

13 | P a g e
Two consumer personas have been made to illustrate two different females that are
interested in participating in esports.

Both profiles show how a typical consumer in this market can be described as bases off
personality, motivations, goals, and frustrations. They both share similar interests and hobbies
of gaming and esports but different demographics.

14 | P a g e
Zone 4: Aspirational
Touch Points

Consumers in this trend are seen to interact with products and services that provide a
connection, entertainment and a sense of comfort and belonging in a safe space. This will lead
consumers to feel more motivated and open to how they feel and can really be themselves in
their environment. Female gamers want to feel motivated in an environment that is welcoming,
encouraging, and non-toxic – creating a support network. Females are likely to interact with
platforms such as Twitch and YouTube to watch esports as the community is large and
welcoming to new viewers and the communities have a range of different people that share
the same interest. These consumers will also be likely to interact with services and
advertisements that build a strong connection within the community through a sympathetic
female-focused communication strategy which they can relate to. Support and building a
commitment to helping female gamers do what they love is important themes to consider -
influencers and ‘’looking up to someone’ is also affective to this consumer market. They are
also likely to be engaged with targeted advertising through influences.

15 | P a g e
Themes to describe the nature of what our consumer market are currently seeking out of products, services, and
innovations. Words are as connection, influence, inclusive, passionate, digital, valuable, collaborative, engaging and
authentic. These touchpoints are reasons to why more women are participating in the trend of esports and should
continue to be the key drivers for companies and brands to look at.

Zone 5: Trend Location

This trend is heavily populated in many different countries around the world with countries
where organised esports tournaments have been around for a longer period with more gender
parity.

Korea and China are the two countries with the highest population of esports fans with Korea
having 32% of esports fan being female. The United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany
all share a higher percent of female esports fans than the U.S and Australia (Nielson 2019).

Source: Nielsen Esports Fan Insights 2018 (Nielson 2019)

16 | P a g e
Countries in Southeast Asia have been increasing female visibility in the male-dominated
industry rapidly. Organisations such as Singapore’s Female Esports League (FSL) have been
working on all-female competitions with prize pools to push the female esports scene and has
taken a large amount of interest in the industry (Ong 2019). In 2019, the growth rate of female
gamers in Asia made it the fastest-growing region in the world (Ong 2019) which has set the
scene for the United States and Europe where numbers continue to rise overtime.

All-female tournaments are being implemented in a lot of competitive games such as first-
person shooter game ‘Valorant’ by Riot Games which is held in regions like North America,
Europe, South-East Asia, Korea, Japan, and China.

Compared to South-East Asia, countries like United States and Australia are yet to show more
numbers to women participating and watching esports but this trend is slowly making its way
through the shores. The increasing presence of female esports in these counties will not only
be important of the overall gaming market but also gender representation in esports.

Source: Women in Gaming (Errens 2020) In the image above, most reports and data can be found in countries
highlighted. This would be the primary focus of this trend.

Tournaments and events by ‘Girl Gamer Festival’ which started in 2017, have made major
establishments in Singapore, Australia, Portugal, Macau, Dubai, Brazil, Spain and South Korea,
but want to continue to reach other countries with ‘as many girls to compete as possible’
(Errens 2020).

17 | P a g e
Source: Girl Gamer Festival, found on their website, GGF upload a series of documents of their events across the
globe to celebrate and promote women’s competitiveness in Esports.

Source: Girl Gamer Festival, a huge event with big screens, live audience and streaming on the internet for the
world to watch an amazing tournament for female competitive gaming.

18 | P a g e
Zone 6: Opportunities

Through the analysis of the previous five zones, introducing a service or brand interventions
to help visibility of the growing trend of women in esports, boost the profiles and engagements
of female esports athletes and abolish the hate/toxicity, harassment, and sexism that women
currently face in competitive gaming (Errens 2020).

It is important for these opportunities to create environments where our target market can
make lasting connections and form friendships with people who share similar interests.

DEFENSIVE AND OFFENSIVE OPPORTUNITY

A defensive opportunity is produced quickly ‘to capitalise on the strength of a trend the team
believes is soon about to pass on from Early Adopters to the Early Majority and Late Majority’
(Raymond 2010). For this trend a great opportunity of creating a space for women to come
together online but can be divided into regions/country locations can be a great way to
increase competitive gaming interests. This idea should be set on a platform accessible for
everyone through social media and streaming services such as Twitch. The best platform right
now for the gaming industry would be Discord. Discord is a great way to create a quick and
easy server which can be further developed to a bigger innovation that can include creating
events, collaborations, tournaments, etc. It will be a great way for women who are only just
finding a way to get involved into esports and find mentors and friends to share their interests.
This can then be transformed to a larger community brand that will be turned into an offensive
opportunity.

Source: PCGamesN, < https://www.pcgamesn.com/overwatch/overwatch-cooler-master-mbt-valkyrie >

19 | P a g e
Source: An example on how the discord server for our new opportunity will look like. A space for people to
‘create, compete and collaborate’.

20 | P a g e
This branding concept will be called ‘Women Empowered Gaming’ with a mission to ‘create
and safe space with a welcoming community for women to socialise and collaborate with
females all around the globe through competitive tournaments and fun events.’ It will be a great
way for external brands to come together to support women visibility in esports and a chance
for innovators and early adopters to meet new people and find role models of those who are
more established in the esports scene. This space promotes female streamers, influences and
esports athletes to join and inspire more females to create or join competitive teams with goals
and aspirations to improve.

For this concept to be developed it will need to be exposed on social media and platforms such
as Twitch and YouTube to reach our target audience. Another way that it will be exposed would
be through word of mouth as this target market are very socialable and collaborative. Digital
marketing campaigns will be essential to this idea.

Concepts of how Women

Empowerment Gaming will be
branded.

21 | P a g e
 CONCLUSION
Through the Trend Funnel framework, we were able to conduct an analysis of the specific trend
of ‘Women Representation and Visibility in competitive Esports’. The gaming industry is at its
peak and is forecasted to continue to rise within the next several years. With consumer
research of drivers, touch points and pain points to this trend, we were able to conclude with
a branding concept opportunity called ‘Women Empowered Gaming’ to bring visibility and a
‘safe space’ to the women esports community where collaborations and opportunities are
created. Women is seen to be the future of esports and a huge influence on the growth of the
gaming industry, which is why it is important for marketers and businesses to support and
encourage women in this developing industry and bring positive change to how esports has
been perceived over the years.

Source: Medium, < https://medium.com/elevey/more-women-in-esports-how-teaching-girls-healthy-

competition-early-will-break-new-ground-9c96754b770e >

22 | P a g e
 REFERENCES
Abdulla, O 2022, How gaming industry has evolved over the last 20 years, TechX Media, viewed
18 April 2022
< https://techxmedia.com/how-gaming-industry-has-evolved-over-the-last-20-years/ >

Anic, D 2018, ‘How Might Brands Use Esports As A Marketing Tool To Engage With Esports
Consumers?’, Medium, viewed 19 April 2022
<https://medium.com/@anic.deniz/how-might-brands-use-esports-as-a-marketing-tool-to-
engage-with-esports-consumers-2e8465970d20 >

Barr, M, Copeland-Stewart, A 2021, ‘Playing Video Games During the COVID-19 Pandemic and
Effects on Players’ Well-Being’, Games and Culture, Vol. 17, No. 1, p. 122-139.

Buckle, C 2018, ‘Understanding female gamer behavior’, GWI, viewed 19 April 2022,
< https://blog.gwi.com/chart-of-the-day/female-gamer-behavior/ >

Chan, M 2021, ‘Women Esports on the Rise’, Sporting Ferret, viewed April 21 2022,
< https://www.sportingferret.com/2021/04/25/women-esports-on-the-
rise/#:~:text=At%20first%20glance%2C%20the%20esports,%2C%20Siren%2C%20debuted
%20in%202013. >

Chikhani, R 2015, The history of gaming: An evolving community, Techcrunch, viewed 21

April 2022.
< https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/31/the-history-of-gaming-an-evolving-community/ >

Duram, H, B 2019, ‘Celebrating Women in Esports, Part 2: Increasing Engagement’, The Esports
Observer, viewed 20 April 2022
< https://archive.esportsobserver.com/women-in-esports-part-2/ >

Errens, J 2020, Women in Gaming, Stylus, viewed 18 April 2022

< https://www.stylus.com/women-in-gaming >

Frontier 2020, ‘Women’s perspectives on gaming communities’, Frontier, viewed 20 April 2020
< https://frontier.com/resources/women-rank-gaming-communities-study>

Hippeau, L 2020, ‘What’s happening in esports’, Medium, viewed 21 April 2022

< https://medium.com/lerer-hippeau-ventures/whats-happening-in-esports-drivers-trends-
and-opportunities-a8b782a26645 >

Data Hunters, 2022, ‘Trend Forecasting’, Data Hunters, viewed April 18th 2022
< https://www.data-hunters.com/use_case/trend-forecasting/ >

23 | P a g e
Haiqal, Y, Yusoff, N, H 2021, ‘Male Dominant Sport: The Challenges of Esports Female
Athletes’, Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, vol. 29, p. 1416-1429.

Nielson 2019, ‘Meet the Female Esports Fan’, Nielson, viewed 22 April 2022
< https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2019/meet-the-female-esports-fan/ >

Ong, A 2019, ‘A League of Their Own: Women’s Esports in Southeast Asia’, FanByte, viewed 20
April 2022
< https://www.fanbyte.com/features/womens-esports-southeast-asia/ >

Owayo 2022, Women in the Gaming Industry, Owayo Magazine, viewed 15 April 2022
< https://www.owayo.com.au/magazine/esports-women-au.htm >

Pallent, J, ‘Week 4: Trend Forecasting & Tracking’, MKT30018 Marketing Insights, Learning
materials via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, viewed 20 April 2022.

Raymond, M 2010, The Rend Forecaster’s Handbook, Laurence King Publishing, United
Kingdom. (Raymond 2010, p. 189-190)

Teknos, 2022, ‘The Rise of Female Gamers: Esports’ Underappreciated Fans’, Teknos,
Viewed 22 April 2022,
< https://www.teknosassociates.com/the-rise-of-female-gamers-esports-underappreciated-
fans/ >

We PC 2022, Video Game Industry Statistics, Trends and Data In 2022, We PC, viewed 22
April 2022
< https://www.wepc.com/news/video-game-statistics/ >

Zhang, Y 2020, ‘The definitive guide to esports marketing: Everything you need to know in 2020’,
Haptic Media, viewed 19 April 2022
< https://hapticmedia.com/blog/esports-marketing/ >

24 | P a g e
25 | P a g e