Heather Blair, CEO of Cinema Esports Alliance Corp, recently interviewed Erika Bagby, Partner, Chief Executive Officer of Ezone Media to get an insight as to how their business came to be.

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Tells us about how you came up with EZONE MEDIA?

E Zone was born out of a unique point in time and history, where The disruption of being locked down thrusted us all into an identity crisis - both personally and professionally. One group in particular was marginalized - the gaming community. 

Disruption of isolation during the lock down of 2020, opened the minds of organizations to rebrand and rediscover how to reach those old and new potential audiences.  Gaming happened to be the perfect segue for multiple industries, from media and entertainment to the military. 

We need community, we need to connect. So, I helped create an event that could draw in not only the players, but also the spectators the same way we do with traditional sports. 

After spending a year creating unique content that connected the gaming community of players, spectators, and celebrity commentators, it became clear that I stumbled upon a marginalized group of people that wanted a voice and brands coming to me for help with marketing in that world. 

Everything had to shift dramatically over 2020, while everyone was isolated, gaming was able to be flexible and provide a platform to continue building a community, while being forced to be locked inside. Brands were stuck trying to relearn how to communicate with people in a new customer environment that the lock down created. 

We served a need in a market that has been marginalized to specific methods and use cases versus the broader potential that is actually presents. 

How are you different than a traditional marketing agency?

People Buy Stories, Not Products.

We specialize in creating brand impressions through memorable customer  engagements that become the stories people want to buy.

Organic connection with customers has to come first from understanding yourself as a brand. Once that is done you can organically immerse yourself into the community of interest you seek. In order to pierce through the white noise of constant communication, you have to intimately know your target audience so you can create meaningful content. 

We don’t write the story, we create it through brand engagement. The engagement becomes the actual story that the customers connect too. 

All the while creating the fingerprint of the target client, we bring authenticity to the brand in an intimate way. 

Give us an example how you see cinemas, and esports/gaming companies benefiting from working together?

Gaming is to the cinemas what streaming is to the movie industry.

Theaters have a lot of screens that can draw people in for a lot of streams.  Gaming has a lot of streams that can benefit from those screens. As was seen in Madison square garden in 2016, when gamers sold out the arena  for one of their largest sold out events filling thousands of seats at $40-$60 a piece 

This shows that there is a opportunity to redefine the cinema for a better gaming and spectator experience. 

What do you see in the future, 2021/2022?

I see gaming being infused into nearly every industry. 

AR and VR, as well as scholastic gaming is drastically changing multiple industries, including healthcare and IoT all from skill sets that come from gaming.  Driving a symbiotic relationship that bridges the gap of new skills needed in the world for a modern era while also being entertaining for spectators. Gaming inherently changes the way people view and consume content from traditional sources. 

For us at E zone, we will connect and bridge the gap between gaming and diverse set of industries. 

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