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Video gamesA Swiss insurance company offers its services in “GTA V”
By opening a virtual branch in the successful video game from Rockstar Games, with the SwissHub platform, Baloise claims to be the first Swiss brand to appear in it.
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The headquarters of Baloise in the fictitious city of Los Santos is equipped with an underground car park for the company’s vehicles, a swimming pool, and a rooftop helipad.
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Charm offensive for Swiss gamers fans of “GTA V” by the Baloise group. The Swiss provider of financial services and insurance “tries its luck in the most dangerous city in the world” by opening a branch in the fictional city of Los Santos this Wednesday, the group announced. It thus boasts of becoming the first Swiss brand to appear in the famous action-adventure game from Rockstar Games, which recently unveiled the trailer for its future opus “GTA VI.” This is not the result of an agreement with the American publisher. The operation takes place on PC, on the SwissHub server, following a collaboration with “the largest Swiss community of players,” where a thousand members gather there every week to play “GTA Online.”
“GTA” Swiss-style
The Swiss role-playing game platform SwissHub allows its members to interact with each other in the open world of “GTA V” by finding local elements. Indeed, in addition to money in Swiss francs instead of GTA$, the SwissHub server allows to display police cars, license plates, road signs, phone numbers with Swiss operator prefixes (such as 079), or regional dishes, such as raclette, fondue or Zurich-style sliced meat.
The two Baloise insurance agents in the game ‘GTA V’.
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Two virtual insurance agents
Concretely, players can go to the virtual headquarters of the insurer to take out various offers. There, they will be welcomed for a month (from Wednesday to Saturday from 6 pm to 10 pm) by two insurance agents appearing in the form of virtual avatars animated by two real people (an actor and a Swiss social media consultant hired for the occasion by the insurance), or a bot outside of presence hours. The prices of the offers range from 100 to 50,000 virtual Swiss francs. For this last amount, players can, for example, take out life insurance allowing them to retrieve their belongings from the branch after their virtual death. As for legal protection, billed between 400 and 1000 virtual francs, it allows to get out of prison more quickly.
A breach of the game’s parodic spirit?
The publisher of the “GTA” franchise takes delight in parodying famous brands (for example, iFruit for iPhone, Sprunk instead of Sprite, or eCola instead of Coca-Cola). However, it is the original name of the Swiss insurance company that appears in its virtual branch, as well as on all the ATMs in the fictional city of Los Santos inspired by Los Angeles. A breach of the game’s spirit? “We know that Swiss players love all the local Swiss aspects that the Swiss role-playing game server SwissHub of GTA V has to offer. We are therefore convinced that they will appreciate our efforts to offer them a great experience of insurance from a Swiss national brand to make the most dangerous city in the world a little safer,” explains Daniel Zangger, brand strategy manager at Baloise.
The insurance group did not reveal the costs of this campaign, which aims to present the brand in a playful way by creating entertaining content, according to the spokesperson. However, he notes that the budget allocated “is significantly cheaper than traditional advertising formats such as television advertising.” It is not yet clear what will happen to the operation in March. Either a bot could take over the work, or the insurance company will put the position of head of the Los Santos branch up for grabs by paying a salary in real Swiss francs, it specifies.
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