"It’s Always Really Rewarding to Work with the Founders - and I Think That’s Critical, Really."
Senior brand strategist and CIC volunteer Nuno Martins tells us about his experience working with the Esports Youth Club founders, and how he helped them to tell their story in a way that reaches young people, resonates with multiple audiences, and attracts more funding.
Nuno Martins, Brand & Communications Strategy Director
Avalyn: Welcome, Nuno! Okay so first of all, can you tell us a bit about who you are and what your practice is, and how you got to where you got to?
Nuno: How long do you have? [laughs] Yeah, so my name is Nuno Martins. I actually have another four names in between, but let's keep it to Nuno Martins. I'm a brand strategist with about 13 years of experience. I now focus primarily in healthcare, but my background is actually life sciences at an educational level.
“IT WAS A VERY GOOD MATCH. I WAS INSTANTLY DRAWN TO WHAT ESPORTS YOUTH CLUB WERE TRYING TO DO – IT TOOK LIKE 30 SECONDS TO SAY YES, EVEN THOUGH I WAS WORKING ON OTHER STUFF!”
But then I went over to the marketing world via consultancy, and then afterwards via agencies as a comms planner, before eventually settling as a freelancer in creative agencies, and finding my niche now in healthcare, which I really love. That's kind of the journey in a nutshell.
Avalyn: And prior to working with ESports Youth Club, have you had any chances to work on what you'd call social impact projects before? And if so, when and what was it?
Nuno: I've had the chance to work with big charities, the British Heart Foundation, and more recently with Mind. With Mind it was very interesting because it was all about closing the gap between the increased awareness of mental health that now exists in the world, but that's not translating to engagement – in this case, particularly with their services – so it was about closing that gap. But I have never had the chance of working with a small social impact business that's trying to have an impact at a very local level. So Esports Youth Club was my first time really, yeah. But hopefully not the last!
Avalyn: Definitely! Can you tell us a bit about your journey to joining Creative Impact Club, and what made you want to start working on the Impact awards? Obviously we met you through Future Strategy Club originally…
Nuno: So my interest in Future Strategy Club started back in 2019, when a friend of mine invited me to one of your previous events at Peckham Levels. Small room, some interesting speakers, but I was there because I was about to make the jump to freelancing and I was trying to meet as many people as possible – and I think at that time the Future Strategy Club was in its infancy as well, like first year maybe? So I went along for the seminars, but also to get involved in a community that was about freelancing, and sort of hero-ing that way of working. From there, as they say, the rest is history! But, you know, I was attracted to the whole ethos of the Future Strategy Club; of calling out the bullshit in the industry and trying to be a little bit more straight-talking about the creative industries and their place in the world – how they could help business, how they could help brand – but also you could tell at that early stage of the FSC there was this idea, this vision to also help the local community. So I was attracted to those concepts and ideas and then I just kind of kept attending events. We did some projects together for the FSC during COVID times, and yeah, I've just been waiting for an opportunity out of the Creative Impact Club. So when you reached out to me I was immediately interested. And I also thought that what you matched me with, it was a very good match. I was instantly drawn to what Esports Youth Club were trying to do – I mean, it took like 30 seconds to say yes, even though I was working on other stuff.
Avalyn: Love that. I'm really glad that you liked the match up, because you were the first person I thought of when we were first talking to them about it! So – tell us a little bit more about the impact project, and what was the output that we agreed with them?
Nuno: So Esports Youth Club exists, first and foremost, to give young people a way to have fun – they are a youth club, after all. But it's so interesting to hear the story from the founders. Louis was a housing officer, and he saw how a lot of kids didn't have a safe space to play, and that they didn't have access to the latest and greatest consoles and gaming equipment – while at the same time realising that there was this trend in ESports where communities were being built and people were coming together and not only having fun but actually using that [space] to build the social skills and life skills that are so important as you move into adulthood. So he had this idea of just getting lots of the best consoles in the room, while also being very aware of the fact that youth services are shutting down everywhere, very fast. Their youth workers are going out of work. There's this massive funding gap, and massive opportunity to have something that replaces them, but with the recognition that the youth services that do exist are not really in sync with what young people like to do these days. Gaming is the number one hobby of young people in the UK, so it was a real opportunity to not only allow kids to have fun doing what they like doing, but also take them off the streets and put them in an environment where they’re not just having fun, but actually gaining new skills that are going to help them later in life.
Then the project – at the moment, Esports Youth Club get their spaces for free from the council, but they're paying for all this very expensive equipment out of pocket. And it's just Louis and the other two founders, Mark and Fin; they have to pay for the transport to take these consoles from one place to the next. But the core of this idea is serving young people. You're helping local councils with the fact that they don't have money available to run youth services. You can see how kids will be attracted to these places, but you have to explain to parents what these places are about, and then on top of that, if you actually want to grow this concept into something that is able to reach more young people, you're going to need funding from sources other than local authorities – you need some private funding. So that gives them the key audiences they need to explain what they're about to – the story of their brand – while at the same time, needing a very simple way to communicate what they're about if they only have like 30 seconds. So the project was all about helping them find what it is that this brand stands for – what is at the heart of the ESports Youth Club – and then finding the story of the brand that can be told for each of these audiences. So we worked on, in marketing lingo, the positioning, which is very simply: what is the image of the EYC we want to create in the mind of our audiences. And then we worked on the “what is the story of the brand”. So the messaging framework tells the story from the very start: that this is something that bridges the gap for disadvantaged youth, what it is that they do, and then all the benefits that kids can take from it. But also what the real impact is that they're already having in the world, because they already have some case studies and feedback, and by now they've done lots of events. And lastly, how can they bring more of the corporate partners on board – which is where the funding is going to come from so they can expand. And then there was a piece at the end around helping them understand how they could plan a campaign. So a very basic content calendar to help them translate – what are the messages I want to land, what content do I need to land those messages, and then how can I plan that longer timeline to have some sort of longevity for a communication campaign. Basically, to help that message land with the audiences they want to land it with.
And the output – so we had the interviews with the founders, I did some background research and then we had a workshop together to align on what our positioning was or the messaging framework was, and then we had the final touchpoint where I handed them over this playbook with all the these things that we just discussed basically. And now there's another part which is, we're actually going to create some content off the back of it.
Avalyn: You did a very full and detailed approach to it, particularly by bringing in the comms plan at the end, which obviously was additional to the work that you were doing as a brand strategist as well, which was amazing. What was your experience like working on the project?
Nuno: Yeah, really good. Really good. It's always really rewarding to work with the founders – and I mean, I think that's kind of critical, really. You can't really do one of these projects without being very close to the founder. They know why they started this impact business. They know what they're about better than anyone. So working directly with them and getting inspired by the reasons why they started this impact club is amazing. I went to one of their events as well to experience it myself, and just seeing it in real life, and being able to understand all the things you're writing in that messaging framework about the benefits and the impact, and you can see how that's very much true. The kids having fun, interacting with each other, cracking jokes, but then at the same time being very focused on these games that require a little bit of critical thinking to go from A to B. So you see it all in action, there's like a big energy. And also at the end, you see the parents come in to pick up the kids, and saying thank you to the founders for putting this together. And also like what I do, which is brand strategy, so being able to apply that for greater good is also rewarding. So those three things, yeah, being able to work with the founders, being able to experience what it is that impact business does, and then apply your craft to helping them. It's kind of the three things I'd say stood out the most for me.
Avalyn: Would you recommend working on an impact project to other club members?
Nuno: No. [laughs] They can leave them for me. Leave them all for me! No, I 100% recommend. Of course I recommend, for all the reasons I've just mentioned!
Avalyn: And do you have any messages for other creatives that are out there that might be looking to find their impact?
Nuno: Well, first of all, join CIC!
Avalyn: Good answer.
Nuno: Join and, you know, come to the open sessions, learn more about it. The second thing I would say is just… put yourself out more. Put yourself out more. It's as likely that it will come to you as it is that you will come to it, or find it during your explorations. So you need to put yourself out there. You know, you can start with an hypothesis, okay, I think I'd like to do this, then you do a bit of research and find social impact businesses in that sort of world, and just start following those things and then at some point that's probably going to be a serendipitous moment. But yeah, there needs to be some action to it and not just waiting for something to miraculously reveal itself.
Avalyn: As with anything in life.
Nuno: Yes!
Avalyn: Amazing. Thanks so much for your time today Nuno!
NUNO MARTINS, Brand & Communications Strategy Director.
Nuno delivered a brand and comms strategy for Esports Youth Club, which aimed to help them tell their story in a way that resonates with multiple key audiences and attracts more private funding.