Marathon Call of Duty and Fortnight sessions can be taxing on the peepers, so Cleary is reaching out to gamers with an eyewear collection aimed at helping them ease eyestrain, promoted by speaking to what’s most important to them: winning.

A new campaign by agency 123w features gaming tropes, inside jokes and 8-bit music familiar to gamers. The video runs down the importance of proper eyewear as the difference between “kill or being killed” when games speed by at 240 frames a second, explaining how blue light filters, headset compatibility and no slip functionality can combat the dry eyes and blurry vision that comes with staring at screen for hours on end.

The goal of the campaign is to convince gamers – including streamers and creators whose content is based around video games, alongside their fans – to see glasses as being as much a piece of gaming equipment as controllers and headsets.

There are a few competing brands keying in on the gamer segment with similar eyewear, such as Oakley and Gunnar. However, according to Eric Seymour, ACD at 123w and art director on the project, Clearly is the first DTC glasses company that’s gotten into it. That is a major means of differentiation itself against Warby Parker and others in an category where value propositions have been very similar.

In addition to taking to Twitch to learn more about that community, and putting calls out to colleagues to see which games their kids were playing, the agency consulted gamers at The Gaming Stadium, an esports facility in Richmond, B.C. When it comes to gamers, who can be cliquey, you have to get the details right to come off as authentic and “if you mess up with this community, they’ll oust you,” Seymour jokes. “[The spot] makes people feel like they’re part of this community.”

The videos are running across Clearly’s web and social media assets and will appear during gamer activations and events sponsored by Clearly. The creative will appear as pre-roll in front of competition streams, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitch, with cutdowns appearing on other gaming streaming sites.

As part of its outreach, the brand is also sponsoring a trio of free esports tournaments called the Clearly Frame Advantage Series, one of which features digital collectible game Magic: The Gathering Arena (see, below).

According to Seymour, the demo, previously thought of as male and youth-centric, is expanding, especially on streamer forums such as Twitch.

“It’s a vast range of a target demo,” Seymour says, who adds that Clearly’s target customer is between 25 and 40.