Paid Too Much for a Video Game? This Ad Delivers Swift Justice

“You lose when you overpay.” 

That’s the line, pregnant with foreboding, framing G2A.com’s latest ad by Change Serviceplan Poland. 

G2A.com is an online marketplace where gamers can buy gear and games at less-than-market price. The ad, directed by Neverest’s Szymon Pawlik and shot at Nu Boyana studios in Bulgaria, trots out the ol’ deliveryman trope in one of four cookie-cutter scenarios: Guys at various points in the customer journey are destroyed, video game-style, with zero hope of a respawn, followed by that line: “You lose when you overpay.” 

The work is clearly made to be cut up and diffused on Twitch; one person in our office has already seen the deliveryman storyline there. “Can’t remember what it was for, though,” he murmured. 

That’s a damn shame, because the production is beautiful. 

How many of us plunge into fantasy worlds we prefer to the one our bodies are in? In our imaginations they are always bleeding into the real world, threatening to topple our structures of sanity, and here you actually get to see that denouement—the wedding of reality and story, your inevitable end.

Natasha Tyrimos, songwriter and performer of the background track, “The Wishing Well,” is also earning well-deserved attention. As G2A tweeted, her music breathes a “magical vibe” through the work, teasing out a smoke signal of the fantastic even before the first gag hits the ground.

Thank you to everyone for the overwhelming comments and feedback on my recent placement of “The Wishing Well” on the G2A ad. Many thanks! https://t.co/9a0AeIBDhT #ad #G2A #games #videogames #songplacement #cinematicsongwriting

— Natasha Tyrimos (@NatashaTyrimos) August 4, 2019

We like these elements. But there’s that line, the cause to each disaster’s effect: “You lose when you overpay.” 

The coherence is muddy, because it’s the game that’s so brutally attacking the customers. (They’re all male. There’s not a single unblurry female face in this universe. Really?!) Surely the game is the only stakeholder here that’s kinda into the idea of you overpaying? Why would it punish you? 

But in fairness to Change Serviceplan Poland, the tagline was inherited, and the agency beat 12 others with this particular idea. 

“Gaming is a very hermetic segment, and not everyone is able to navigate it. That is why we briefed as many as 12 agencies,” explains Marek Magoń, brand and marketing comms head at G2A.com. “Change Serviceplan presented the best idea, which perfectly fits both the target group and the philosophy of the G2A.com brand. The motto ‘You lose when you overpay’ is a brilliant combination of the gaming term ‘losing’ and positioning focused on great prices, which is crucial for our brand.” 

Brilliant is an oversell. Also, “losing” is less a gaming term than, well, English for not winning (not just at games, or matches, or promotions or love; you can also lose at life!). But now we’re just trolling. 

The thing is, coherence will make or break you when you’ve got just a couple of seconds to stick the landing. Luckily, you can respawn in advertising.

“You Lose When You Overpay” will appear online in Poland, the Netherlands, France and the U.K. 

CREDITS

Title: G2A
Campaign Name: You Lose When You Overpay
Product / Service: Marketplace For Gamers and Geeks
Brand Name: G2A
Advertiser / Client: G2A
Creative Director: Jan Majle
Art Director: Dominik Przerwa
Copywriter: Marcin Nowakowski
Account Director (Agency): Karol Stefański
Strategic Planner / Strategist: Marcin Ejsmont Production Company: Neverest
Director: Szymon Pawlik
Director of Photography: Mikołaj Syguda
Music: Natasha Tyrimos
Agency Producer: Dorota Sieradzka
Post Production: Juice
Other Credits: Zosia Kustosz