Social Listening - 100 Thieves

The brand I chose to talk about today is a newer company called 100 Thieves. They are a premium lifestyle brand and esports organization. 100T was created in 2017 at the heart of competitive gaming, entertainment and apparel by Mathew "Nadeshot" Haag. After retiring from professional competitive play, 100T became Nadeshot's passions project. "In its first two years, 100 Thieves has won multiple esports major championships in Call of Duty, made the League of Legends and Fortnite World Championships, launched the top gaming podcasts on iTunes, sold out over a dozen apparel drops, and is supported by major partners such as Cash App, General Mills, Rocket Mortgage, and Red Bull. The company has raised $60M from investors including Drake, Scooter Braun, Cleveland Cavaliers Owner & Quicken Loans Chairman Dan Gilbert."

I have been interested in this brand ever since it was first conceptualized in 2017. I have followed Nadeshot since the beginning of his career, far before he ever thought about creating a company. I've followed 100T from when it started out in a small apartment with 1 other person to now having over 60 employees housed in the brand new Cash App Compound, which just got unveiled. I like how he decided that he wanted his apparel to be similar to Supreme and not flashy gaming apparel  that someone would not wear outside their homes. They had limited drops which made the product exclusive and harder to acquire, which made the resell value go up. The quality of the product is much better than any other gaming organization's merchandise along with other actual clothing brands too. They offer a premium product for those that want to support them. They also employee several content creators in different entertainment areas to gain support through YouTube, live streaming, and podcast. 

A lot of people love 100 Thieves and support them fully. Almost anyone who knows about 100 Thieves has nothing but positive things to say about the brand. Most of the Instagram and Twitter comments are related to their apparel. People are curious about how much each drop will be and if their will be enough stock so people actually have a chance to buy the merchandise. The other comments are usually people replying to content creators under 100 Thieves and not specifically about the brand itself. The most amount of negative attention is because of the apparel being so limited and sought after. People have created bots to buy apparel instantly so they can resell at a higher price.
The company is largely focused on selling apparel and content. 100 Thieves has invested a lot into its content creators so that they can become successful. The people signed under them have millions of views and subscribers on YouTube and other social media platforms. The content creators are selling their own brand too because that is what the audience is invested in. With all these views more people discover the brand which leads to better apparel sales along with increased ad revenue since all of the videos are monetized. 
The companies biggest marketing issue is how new it is compared to all the other esports organizations. Most of the organizations began as soon as 2010 and 100T was last to the party. The weird thing about 100 Thieves is actually how quickly it rose to the top. There have been many massive esports organizations but none of them got as famous as 100T did in such a short amount of time. The company did a great job on all of its apparel drops which helped them a lot, since no other esports org and merchandise that was as premium and aesthetic as 100 Thieves. They seem to be having less issues with marketing and more issues with competitive gaming and esports. They are still operating in a somewhat niche market, but has gaming becomes more invested in by bigger companies and people, such as Drake and Rocket Mortage, 100 Thieves will grow accordingly. If I was the brand manager I would reward the fans that supported us by doing more drops that don't sell out instantly and maybe a few giveaways to keep the momentum going.

The content creators that are a part of 100 Thieves can stand alone as their own brand which is different compared to other less known teams. This allows fans to be a part of 100 Thieves even if they only support one creator. I learned that building your brand in esports is more about your content and content creators than it is about winning championships.