Few stories are as captivating as John Higgins’s rise to success in creative marketing. Beginning in theater, moving through television, and eventually landing in gaming and esports, Higgins’s flair for the dramatic and keen eye for emerging trends has led to a career peppered with accolades — and a lot of fun.
Here, we dive into John Higgins’s journey and discover how one of the quirkiest and most creative minds in sports, gaming, and entertainment marketing got to where he is today.
Theatrical beginnings
Higgins cut his teeth in entertainment marketing with Mayhem Productions, a company that focused primarily on theater productions, from opera and musicals to live-action cinematic fusions. “My background in theater is what led me to pursue marketing,” explains Higgins. “In theater, the number one rule is you have to sell tickets. You have to have ideas that sell.”
Higgins considers it a mark of honor that he once had the two hottest tickets in London. However, he soon started to experience the limitations of theater productions.
“The problem with the theater is the auditoriums — once you sell out, that’s it. You can’t sell any more tickets,” Higgins says. “You hit a limit.”
Working around this limit was what led Higgins to expand creatively. Soon, Mayhem was blending the fantastic spectacle of theater with multi-cam, arena-style productions. “Suddenly, you are now selling entertainment for an unlimited scale,” he says.
Taking entertainment to the masses
Realizing what he could accomplish by expanding the audience for various productions, Higgins soon moved into television, exploring creatively produced commercials, live broadcasts, and other means of global storytelling. As trends in entertainment evolved, he evolved right alongside them.
Gaming has been one area of entertainment that has been radically transformed over the years. Where once kids would huddle in front of their television sets, fervently blowing into Nintendo cartridges to get them to work just a little bit longer, gaming is now a source of community, global competition, and the subject of high-level marketing campaigns. Video games, online gaming, and esports have gone from child’s play to serious business.
OS Studios, the company Higgins co-founded, deeply understands gaming culture and the community embedded within it. “We are not just gaming experts. We are audience experts,” he says.
OS Studios has been at the forefront of helping foster communities, build brands within gaming, and help make fans outside of gaming. The company has accomplished this through live gaming and esports events and shows worldwide, producing original gaming culture content, and tapping into what turns players into rabid fans.
With OS Studios, Higgins and his team have set themselves apart by tapping into what they call Fan Z — a generation of gamers and esports enthusiasts who are a “force to be reckoned with” in the gaming space. Higgins helps brands integrate within the gaming space by teaching them how to engage with Fan Z on their terms — constantly creating, perpetually connected, and actively shaping the cultural landscape.
Challenge accepted
As Higgins built OS Studios and immersed himself in gaming and esports culture, he began to see his primary challenge would be convincing people that gaming and esports are fundamentally different from traditional sports.
“As people started to wake up to gaming culture, I think most people believed we could just reinvent what we’ve done with sports — that esports are just sports, but digital — but actually, it’s closer to a model of fashion culture or music culture,” Higgins explains.
One of Higgins’s biggest hurdles has been training and teaching brands how to think differently about video gaming. Much of that training has been helping brands overcome stigmas attached to the word “gamer.”
“You think gaming, you think a fat man in a basement or some kid just playing Fortnite,” says Higgins. “And today, it’s neither of those things.” Through education, Higgins has opened the eyes of the C-suite at some long-standing brands to the vibrant reality of gaming and esports, a $250.5 billion industry — more than film, music, and publication combined — supported by fans from all walks of life.
Come as you are
Everything that OS Studios does with its clients is rooted in its belief that the gaming and esports communities are some of the most inclusive and welcoming out there. “It’s one of the things that’s so amazing about gaming culture. You go to Comic Con — any of the ‘Nerd Cons’ — you’ll notice it’s one of the safest, most inclusive communities there is,” says Higgins. “Your people are everywhere. Being there is awesome because everyone is so nice and polite.”
Higgins still marvels at how gamers manage their own lines at live events, indicative of just how far that “nice and polite” distinction goes. “If you’re not following that code, the community will sus you out instantly. Some game publishers and brands have done it wrong, and they are still struggling to get their reputation back,” he says.
Higgins is also determined to move OS Studios forward with a sense of responsibility for sustainability. “By default, gaming and entertainment are high-consumption activities,” he explains. “But we are trying to create net zero gaming methods — and that’s crazy.” Higgins and his team hope to inspire people to seek out sustainable energy methods and reduce their personal impact on climate change by 10%.
From humble beginnings to accolades
Higgins has come a long way from his humble beginnings as the son of a plumber and a hairdresser. Today, his family still has a significant role in every move he makes with creative marketing.
“Whatever I do, I always think of my family — my sister, the CFO, my brothers who are plumbers, and my mum, the hairdresser. If they can’t watch it and find it entertaining, then I feel like I’ve missed the mark,” Higgins says
OS Studios and Higgins have received numerous accolades for their work, including several Webbys, a Clio, and an Emmy nomination. As they move forward, Higgins is excited for what’s to come.
“I know gaming can feel like it’s just for the kids,” he says. “But we are finding a way to make it entertaining and interactive for the most common denominator of viewers — and I think that’s awesome.”
