The telecom market has long been divided among a few major brands, and customers rarely switch operators. Only 8% of Russians consider doing so. This means that even a small change in brand choice and perception is an important result (Brand Pulse, 2025). Younger people are more open to switching operators, so they are especially important to every company in the category. To build a long-term relationship with them, Beeline chose gaming: today, one in three Russians aged 25–45 plays games every week (Brand Pulse, 2025). But gaming is a separate culture with its own platforms, celebrities, language and rules. Gamers quickly notice when a brand feels fake. So it is not enough for a brand to simply appear in a game. It must understand the problems within the community and speak to gamers as equals.
Problem
It was important for us not just to get gamers’ attention, but to make more people consider Beeline and strengthen the brand’s image as sincere, progressive and relevant to young people. While researching gaming culture, we found a tension: in the toxic gaming environment, almost anything personal can become a reason for mockery. Love is an even easier target. Gamer couples often hide their relationships because they fear that others will stop taking them seriously as competitors. Beeline saw love not as a weakness, but as an advantage in the game. Trust, understanding and support make partners a stronger and more united team. We chose not to change gamers’ minds with words. Instead, it gave couples a chance to change the community’s opinion in the way gamers value most: through a high level of play.
Solution
Beeline created its own esports event: LOVE CUP, the first-ever Counter-Strike 2 tournament for couples. Here, couples could show their skills and prove to the community that being in a relationship made them stronger as a team. Qualifying matches, a live final on Twitch and professional commentators made LOVE CUP a real esports event. Custom maps and challenges made trust, communication and teamwork part of the competition: the closer the partners were, the better they completed the challenges. Beeline’s products were deeply integrated into the tournament. In Season 1, each couple controlled one character and shared playing time, just as Beeline customers share minutes and gigabytes with the “Share Everything” service. In Season 2, the custom-map challenges strengthened the bond between partners and showed how a Beeline product helps people stay connected with loved ones even when their mobile account balance goes below zero. After the success of Season 1, we brought Season 2 to a wider audience through more promotion and popular hosts: streamer Dima Lixxx and Olga Parfenyuk, the host of one of Russia’s most popular dating shows. Together, they connected gaming with relationships and made the project interesting to a wider group of viewers. Announcements on gaming websites, in gaming communities and on streamers’ social media attracted participants and viewers. Video introductions and live conversations told the couples’ stories. During the stream, viewers voted to influence the matches, played mini-games and could find a date through a special activity in the Twitch chat. The final was streamed on the hosts’ Twitch channels and also shown on the project landing page and the commentators’ channels.
Results
LOVE CUP changed the community’s reaction. At first, people laughed at the idea of a tournament for couples. But the participants’ impressive gaming skills made viewers take them seriously: skeptical comments turned into support and praise. Interest in the idea was confirmed by the number of couples, which grew more than six times: from 48 in Season 1 to 337 in Season 2. Over two seasons, LOVE CUP achieved: 67.5 million impressions; 31.5 million people reached; 200,000 visits to the landing page; 500,000 positive reactions. At its peak, the live stream of the final ranked #1 in the Counter-Strike 2 category and #3 among all Russian streams on Twitch. More than 70% of the viewers we asked liked the advertising format and said it made them trust the brand. The strategy strengthened exactly the Beeline qualities we wanted to build: “sincere” +16 percentage points, “progressive” +11 percentage points, and “for young people” +13 percentage points. The share of viewers who would consider choosing Beeline grew by 18 percentage points in Season 1 and 33 percentage points in Season 2. Beeline claimed a new niche where esports and relationships meet. And showed that the brand can talk about personal topics with a toxic audience without pushing people away.
