Brands Are Finding Harmony on Discord

It's a Thursday afternoon, and around 3,000 streetwear fanatics are online, debating the news of the day. What’s the best app to verify a pair of sneakers isn’t a knockoff? Which NFTs are good investments? And what's the deal with Supreme’s collaboration with Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, anyway? Welcome to the StockX Discord server, a platform where the streetwear ecommerce company is creating brand loyalty outside the usual auspices of advertising. StockX is among a slate of mainstream brands—including Chipotle, Jack in the Box, Skittles and M&M's—experimenting with the community-focused messaging app. “We know to create enduring relationships with our customers, we need that authentic connection," said StockX chief marketing officer Deena Bahri, adding that Discord serves a community-building function as opposed to a direct-sales one for the company. While Discord started as a popular tool for video gamers to chat, more than 78% of people were using Discord for non-gaming purposes or a combination of gaming and non-gaming purposes in 2021, compared to only 30% in 2019, according to a Discord spokesperson. Today, there are more than 19 million active servers, or spaces for communities to chat, on everything from anime to fashion, and 150 million monthly active users—but no paid advertising placements. Discord’s subscription-driven model makes the platform a unique opportunity for brands to connect with younger, more ad-resistant audiences without having to compete for attention with so many other brands and the creators hawking them, experts say. It also offers an enthusiast-oriented user base at a time when advertisers are prioritizing niche over reach and privacy concerns make targeting less of a sure bet for connecting with consumers. A two-way dialogue Discord represents a shift away from the broadcast mindset that characterizes brands' approach to other social platforms—posting, commenting, viral moments, more of a Web2 paradigm—toward a future of decentralized, community-led platforms, said Ben Arnold, CEO of agency We Are Social. And the capability for interaction is not going unnoticed. “I can’t remember seeing engagement like that on other platforms,” Arnold added. StockX took to Discord after noticing a shift in how consumers wanted to communicate with brands, according to Bahri. “They’re looking for a two-way dialogue,” she said. “The customer is looking for more—more engagement, more dialogue, more input—and Discord is one of the platforms offering that.” Case study StockX has found Discord to be a powerful brand marketing lever. When it launched on June 21 on Discord, 20,000 people joined the brand's server, breaking a record for single-day joins and beating Discords's average for brands 84 times over, according to a spokesperson. Now, StockX has hired a staffer to help manage the company’s Discord server, which averages 20 monthly messages per member—double Discord’s average. The platform is proving sticky too: 86% of members of the StockX server have stayed with it for more than six months. StockX uses Discord to glean customer insights and develop new products. For example, StockX began selling British streetwear label Corteiz as a result of fans' inquiries on Discord, said StockX CMO Deena Bahri. Meta-owned platforms, the goliaths of social advertising, do not provide the same kind of community-based experience as Discord, and Apple’s privacy changes have undermined one of their best selling points: granular consumer targeting at scale. “So many people have left [Meta],” said Nicole Penn, president at agency The EGC Group, who is currently working on Discord campaigns for two different clients. “The CPMs have gone way up. It’s harder to target. Brands are looking to create communities in new places.” Arnold said that before hopping on the platform, brands should consider the value their presence brings to consumers and think of their own goals, such as community-building and growth, as secondary. "Highly engaged servers on Discord typically have been set up by and for very specific communities," Arnold said. "The role of the brand therefore is ... to facilitate, support, finance, etc., versus actually lead the conversation." Taking advantage of the white space Chipotle recently discovered another use for Discord when it took to the platform to recruit employees. The fast-food brand's Discord career fair generated nearly 24,000 applications in one week, making it a much more effective vehicle for recruiting than TikTok, according to Chipotle CMO Chris Brandt. Still, Chipotle is not prioritizing Discord as a marketing channel as it has TikTok, Roblox and Snapchat, all of which have a much bigger reach, Brandt said. (For comparison, the brand has 1.7 million followers on TikTok and gets 4 million game plays a week on Roblox, but attracted just 3,700 attendees to its Discord event.) Brand safety is another drawback, though Discord says 15% of its staff works on safety after the platform came under fire for being the online gathering place for organizers of the alt-right Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. While Discord currently has no public plans to introduce advertising (it is experimenting with monetization options for creators), the company still wants brands on the platform. Its growing strategic communications team provides resources, such as access to a Branded Communities server, Q&As, discussions and informational sessions for agencies, said head of strategic communities Amber Atherton. “We encourage every brand that we work with to take advantage of what a white space it is right now,” Atherton said. “Brands have a role to play in consumers’ lives in the same way creators do.”

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More Mainstream Brands Are Finding Harmony on Discord

The ad-free messaging platform is an alternative to passive scrolling

Catherine Perloff

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Catherine Perloff