Gaming audiences are the most hostile to advertising and the most loyal when a brand gets it right. In Costa Rica there is also a variable no large market has: the price of imported hardware.

Why they reject advertising

Because they detect it. A video that opens with the brand logo, an enthusiastic line or a broadcaster tone is dead within one second.

What they accept instead

  • The honest opinion, flaws included. "The microphone is excellent, the software is a disaster."
  • A demonstration in real use. An actual match, not a staged one.
  • The full setup with real prices. Here is the Costa Rican key. What each piece cost landed in the country, what was bought first, what they waited to come down in price.
  • The comparison with what they had before. Concrete, with numbers.
  • Self aware humour. Acknowledging that it is paid content works better than hiding it.

The imported price objection

In Costa Rica, a peripheral costs considerably more than in its home market because of taxes and logistics. Ignoring that fact makes all the content sound disconnected from the buyer's reality.

What works is the opposite: addressing it head on. "Yes, it costs twice what it does abroad. Here is what you get for that and here is how long mine lasted." A creator doing that arithmetic on camera generates more trust than ten enthusiastic reviews.

Content about mid range alternatives also works very well, because it answers what the audience can actually afford.

Which creators to hire

The one who genuinely plays your product's genre, and the mid sized creator before the big streamer. In a small market, the local creator's trust relationship weighs more than reach.

The brief that produces good material

Include: what can be criticised and what cannot, the gameplay context, three hooks, the disclosure wording and what must be visible.

Explicitly authorising criticism of one aspect of the product multiplies the credibility of everything else.

The Costa Rican calendar

The peaks are Black Friday, Christmas, major launches and the December to February school holidays.

Where to go next

In gaming, honesty about price is the commercial strategy. Our complete UGC guide for brands explains the rest of the process.