eBay Bets on British Optimism With More Ways to Win
eBay's 'More ways to win' is a UK film campaign created by McCann London and launched in April 2021, positioning eBay as a multi-route marketplace that empowers consumers through refurbished electronics, pre-loved products, and Brand Outlet deals across the United Kingdom.
The campaign centres on a single, warmly comic film narrative: a would-be jogger and his dog, Nobby, set off on an exaggerated chain of post-lockdown wins made possible by purchases across eBay's platform. The story follows a familiar British comedic register — a central male character delivering an inflated personal account, eccentric supporting players, and a payoff in which the protagonist meets the woman of his dreams, as reported by LBBOnline. That narrative architecture is not incidental. It mirrors the emotional temperature of a United Kingdom emerging from extended restrictions in spring 2021, a moment when the promise of accumulating small, tangible victories carried genuine cultural resonance.
The campaign was produced by Craft London and directed by Tom Kuntz of MJZ, as documented by LBBOnline. Its scope extended beyond the hero film, with supporting topical radio activity addressing specific post-lockdown consumer needs including clothing, hairdryers, and camping equipment, according to LBBOnline. Three distinct eBay purchase routes anchor the creative — Certified Refurbished electronics, pre-loved bikes, and Brand Outlet products — making the platform's breadth of offer legible to a broad UK audience rather than reducing eBay to a single use case. The campaign earned coverage from Campaign Live and LBBOnline as a vivid and playful contribution to a competitive eCommerce moment in the UK. Clapboard scores 'More ways to win' at 63 out of 100.
eBay operates a marketplace model that competes on range and value rather than speed of fulfilment alone. In the United Kingdom in 2021, that distinction carried strategic weight. Consumer behaviour across the UK had shifted materially during the pandemic period, with demand for refurbished electronics, secondhand goods, and discounted branded products accelerating as households managed tighter budgets alongside renewed appetite for outdoor and lifestyle purchases. 'More ways to win' speaks directly to that configuration of need, reframing eBay not as a single-function auction site but as a platform with multiple, coexisting pathways to value.
The campaign's emphasis on Certified Refurbished electronics, pre-loved bikes, and Brand Outlet deals reflects a deliberate attempt to address consumer segments simultaneously — the bargain hunter, the sustainability-conscious shopper, and the brand-loyal buyer seeking reduced prices, as outlined by LBBOnline. This breadth of address is significant in the UK eCommerce context, where eBay competes directly with Amazon, whose marketplace dominance remains substantial. Amazon's total gross merchandise volume exceeded six hundred billion dollars globally in 2021, according to reporting by Campaign Live, illustrating the scale of the competitive environment eBay operates within. A second significant competitor in the UK refurbished and pre-loved electronics space is Back Market, which built its European proposition specifically around certified refurbished devices — a category eBay's 2021 campaign directly foregrounds.
McCann London's strategic insight was to lead with outcome rather than category. The phrase 'more ways to win' subordinates product type to the feeling of having made a smart choice, which resonates with a UK audience characterised by value-consciousness and dry scepticism toward overt commercial claims. The radio executions reinforcing the campaign with topical post-lockdown references — clothing, hairdryers, camping gear — extended that insight into high-frequency environments, reaching UK consumers at moments of immediate, practical intent, per LBBOnline.
Tom Kuntz directed 'More ways to win' for eBay. Kuntz, represented by production company MJZ, is a director with a documented track record in comedic commercial filmmaking, and his approach is visible throughout the campaign's central film. The creative leans into a specifically British mode of humour — understatement punctuated by absurdist escalation — that suits the campaign's premise of a man whose dog Nobby sets off an improbable chain of post-lockdown personal triumphs, as reported by LBBOnline.
Craft London served as the production partner on the campaign, as documented by LBBOnline. The collaboration between McCann London as creative agency and Craft London as production house is consistent with a workflow in which the agency's strategic and creative direction is realised through a specialist production infrastructure. The result, as LBBOnline described it, is a film that reads as vivid and playful — qualities that depend on precise tonal calibration in casting, performance direction, and editorial rhythm. The jogger protagonist functions as an everyman archetype recognisable to a UK audience, while Nobby the dog provides a visual and comedic anchor that sustains warmth across the narrative.
The multi-channel execution demonstrates creative coherence across formats. The hero film establishes the campaign's emotional and narrative logic, while the topical radio executions apply the same 'more ways to win' framework to immediate, seasonal UK consumer needs — hairdryers, camping equipment, clothing — without requiring the visual scaffolding of the film. That adaptability across media is a mark of a campaign idea with genuine structural strength, not merely a strong execution in a single format. Production credits beyond the director and production house for 'More ways to win' are not fully publicly documented beyond what LBBOnline and Campaign Live have reported.
No verified performance data for 'More ways to win' is publicly available. No campaign-specific sales lift, revenue change, market-share movement, conversion increase, brand-tracking shift, or return on advertising spend figure has been disclosed by eBay or McCann London, per Clapboard's research. No verified awards entry or recognition for the campaign has been identified across Cannes Lions, the Effies, D&AD, One Show, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC, based on Clapboard's review.
Structural analysis of the campaign nonetheless supports a reading of competent strategic and creative execution. The decision to anchor the campaign in a single, high-craft film directed by Tom Kuntz of MJZ, as reported by LBBOnline, concentrates production value in a way that elevates brand perception for eBay against better-capitalised competitors in the United Kingdom. The three-route product framework — Certified Refurbished, pre-loved, Brand Outlet — provides a memorable and differentiated message architecture that avoids the generic value claims common in eCommerce advertising.
The radio extensions indicate a media strategy weighted toward reach and contextual relevance in the UK market, not merely a single-platform film deployment. That multi-format coherence suggests a campaign engineered for sustained consumer exposure rather than a single burst impression. Whether those structural strengths translated into measurable commercial outcomes for eBay in the United Kingdom during 2021 cannot be confirmed from publicly available information. Clapboard scores 'More ways to win' at 63 out of 100, reflecting creative and strategic merit in the absence of verified effectiveness data.
eBay's 'More ways to win' is a UK film campaign created by McCann London and launched in April 2021. It positions eBay as a marketplace offering multiple purchase routes — Certified Refurbished electronics, pre-loved bikes, and Brand Outlet products — using a comedic narrative about a jogger and his dog, Nobby, as reported by LBBOnline.
McCann London created the campaign for eBay in the United Kingdom. The hero film was produced by Craft London and directed by Tom Kuntz of MJZ, as documented by LBBOnline. The campaign also included supporting topical radio executions targeting post-lockdown consumer needs across the UK market.
The campaign featured three eBay purchase routes. These were Certified Refurbished electronics, pre-loved bikes, and Brand Outlet discounted products, according to LBBOnline. The three routes were central to eBay's strategy of demonstrating marketplace breadth to UK consumers during the post-lockdown period of spring 2021.
No verified awards have been identified for 'More ways to win.' Clapboard's review found no recognised entry or win across Cannes Lions, D&AD, the Effies, One Show, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC for this eBay UK campaign. The campaign received editorial coverage from LBBOnline and Campaign Live.
Clapboard scores 'More ways to win' at 63 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's structured creative approach and multi-format execution across film and radio in the United Kingdom, assessed in the absence of publicly verified performance or effectiveness data for the 2021 eBay campaign by McCann London.
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