Why Thai Express gifted Twitch subs instead of buying ad space

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Most brands that want to show up on Twitch buy an ad. When Thai Express came to SoaR, we went a different route together: we gave something away.

Thai Express is built on Thai Heart—the belief that Thai food is meant to be shared, and that generosity and positivity go a long way. The brand's objective was to bring that to a new audience: the next generation of Thai cuisine enthusiasts, most of whom spend their time online. The question wasn't how to advertise to them, but how to show up the same way Thai Express shows up in its restaurants.

On Twitch, the answer to that isn't a pre-roll. It's gifted subs.

Armed with a newly minted Thai Express Canada Twitch account, we dropped into a number of different livestreams and started dropping batches of gifted subscriptions for creators and their viewers. No ad buy, no ad read. Just subs.

Gifted subs unlock perks for viewers and directly support the creator, so naturally, they are quite hype. That energy is what sparked real-time moments of surprise and delight when Thai Express entered the chat with a treasure trove of gifted subs. Streamers lit up on camera, chats erupted, and the audience got something back in return. And the moments made for great short-form, clippable content that travelled laterally across social and extended the campaign's lifecycle.

Across activations spanning the past several months, the campaign generated millions of impressions from live viewers and those who saw the clips afterward, with more sub-gifting to come later this year. But the more important metric was sentiment—Thai Express showed up as the hero of the moment instead of the interruption that comes with a pre-roll or ad read.

It helped that all of this happened live. Nothing about a livestream is edited or scheduled, so when the subs dropped, the streamer, the people who got them, and everyone just watching all experienced it at once. Thai Express was there for it too, not delivering a message but sharing a moment with the people it came to meet.

“Thai Heart is about sharing our love of Thai food with as many people as possible,” said Dennis Ng, SVP at MTY Food Group. “Gaming was a new community for us, but the spirit of bringing people together and sharing generously translated naturally. Working alongside SoaR, we found a way to become part of the fun rather than interrupt it, while giving the community something they genuinely wanted. Finding new ways to connect with people through shared experiences, while staying true to what defines our brand, is exactly the kind of collaboration we want to keep building.”

"Thai Express came in with a real clarity about who they are and what they stand for, and that's what made the creative work," said Oliver Silverstein, Chief Operating Officer at SoaR. "Our job was to translate that into something native to the environment they were entering. When a brand's values and the room line up like they did here, you get a campaign that's simple, memorable, and effective all at once."