Overview

The influencers I tend to follow are the ones who make gaming and tabletop culture feel creative, funny, and welcoming instead of loud for no reason. That group includes Smosh Games, Matthew Mercer and the Critical Role team, and Felicia Day. What makes them especially interesting from a marketing perspective is that they do not all sell in the same way. Smosh Games often folds products directly into entertainment content, Critical Role builds long-term trust through partnerships that fit naturally into tabletop play, and Felicia Day leans more into personal-brand and community-driven marketing. Looking at them together makes it easier to see how influencer marketing works when it feels aligned with the creator’s identity rather than awkwardly stapled on top of it (Ilieva et al., 2024; Zahay, 2022).

What I Notice About This Type of Marketing

What stands out most is that this kind of marketing works best when it does not feel like traditional advertising. It usually shows up inside content people already want to watch. For example, Smosh Games featured a sponsored Board AF episode with Big Potato Games, where the cast played What Next? as the actual content of the video instead of pausing everything for a separate sales pitch (Smosh Games, 2024). That makes the product feel social, playable, and fun rather than forced. Research on influencer marketing suggests that customer attitudes are shaped heavily by trustworthiness, expertise, and attractiveness, which helps explain why these kinds of endorsements can affect purchase behavior when the creator already feels credible to the audience (Ilieva et al., 2024). In other words, the marketing works because the audience is already engaged before the product ever appears.

What Strategies Are They Employing?

A few clear strategies keep showing up. First, these creators use native integration, where the product is woven directly into the format. Smosh Games does that well because a board game sponsorship fits naturally into a group game video. Second, some creators use long-term affinity partnerships rather than one-off promotions. Critical Role has done this with D&D Beyond and WizKids, promoting tools and products that fit directly into the tabletop ecosystem their audience already cares about (Critical Role, 2018, 2019, 2021). That matters because it makes the partnership feel less like an interruption and more like a useful extension of the content. Third, there is personal-brand monetization. Felicia Day’s promotion of her GEEX creator coin was not about endorsing someone else’s product as much as inviting followers to support her work through a creator-centered model (Day, 2021). These strategies differ, but they all depend on consistency, audience trust, and a strong match between the creator and what is being promoted (Zahay, 2022).

What Role Do These Influencers Play in Marketing

These influencers act as translators between brands and audiences. Smosh Games plays the role of the entertaining peer group that makes a product look fun and approachable. Critical Role functions more like a trusted expert and world-builder, especially when Matthew Mercer and the cast show products in actual use during campaign content. Felicia Day plays more of a founder or curator role, where the audience is not only responding to content but also investing in a creator relationship. Zahay (2022) notes that influencers and content creators may overlap but are not exactly the same, and these examples show why that distinction matters. Their marketing value comes not just from audience size, but from the type of trust they build and the role they occupy in their communities. That also matches Ilieva et al.’s (2024) finding that positive attitudes toward influencers can shape attitudes toward the product or service being promoted.

Marketing Perspective and the Company–Consumer Relationship

From a marketing perspective, these influencers strengthen the relationship between company and consumer by making the brand feel more human, contextual, and relevant. A board game shown in a Smosh video feels like a social experience. A D&D tool used by Critical Role feels practical and credible. A creator-support model promoted by Felicia Day feels personal and community-based. That may be why influencer marketing can be so effective when it is done well: it does not just create awareness, it changes how the audience feels about the product. At the same time, this only works when the fit is genuine. If the endorsement feels random or overly polished, the trust breaks fast. The best examples are the ones where the product belongs in the creator’s world already, and the audience can tell.

References

Critical Role. (2018, May 31). D&D Beyond official trailer. https://critrole.com/dd-beyond-official-trailer/

Critical Role. (2019, February 28). HYPE: D&D Beyond extension on Twitch!. https://critrole.com/hype-dd-beyond-extension-on-twitch/

Critical Role. (2021, January 21). HYPE: Critical Role x WizKids miniatures are coming soon!. https://critrole.com/hype-critical-role-x-wizkids-miniatures-are-coming-soon/

Day, F. (2021, October 28). Hey all! Instead of making a Patreon to support what I do online, I’ve decided to make a creator coin called GEEX [Facebook post]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/FeliciaDay/posts/hey-all-instead-of-making-a-patreon-to-support-what-i-do-online-ive-decided-to-m/428205402006103/

Ilieva, G., Yankova, T., Ruseva, M., Dzhabarova, Y., Klisarova-Belcheva, S., & Bratkov, M. (2024). Social media influencers: Customer attitudes and impact on purchase behaviour. Information, 15(6), 359. https://doi.org/10.3390/info15060359

Smosh Games. (2024, August 18). Choose your own Board AF adventure (What Next?) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN_iUDxLhZY

Zahay, D. (2022). Social media marketing: A strategic approach (3rd ed.). Cengage Learning US. https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9798214352879