Bury Boring feat. Eric Andre: Opera GX

The Strategic Proposition: Eric André vs.Browsers

Going into this campaign, we knew we wanted it to embrace Opera GX's irreverent, engaging, and distinctive brand personality. Focusing on challenging the competition while remaining true to the brand's essence, our strategic approach focussed on shaking up public perception of typical ‘boring’ browsers, which needed an irreverent tone of voice that felt uniquely Opera GX, and a proposition — Eric Andre vs Boring Browsers — that positioned Opera GX as the best browser for gamers and the remedy to monotonous online behaviour.

Why Eric André? One word: personality. As a comedian best known as the creator, host, and co-writer of the surreal Adult Swim comedy series ‘The Eric André Show,’ he was perfect to represent the fun and irreverent tone of voice of Opera GX. André also has a significant following on social media, with 2.7m followers on Instagram alone—which might have swayed us a bit.

The Big Idea: Bury Boring

Who’s afraid to call out the bad, boring, and dull? Not us.

The ‘Bury Boring’ campaign emphasised Opera GX's main message: their commitment to doing things differently and better than other browsers. Our narrative positioned Opera GX as the solution to tedious (and relatable) browser problems, resonating specifically with the gaming community to get them to switch over to the fun side.

What’s the narrative? Simple. Eric is done with boring browsers and backwards browser behaviours, so he’s on a rampage to bury the devices of boring internet users and to kill off boring browsing. Eric’s chaotic campaign calls for every slow, vanilla, out of date, irrelevant, safe, boring browser to be buried, one by one. So long as he doesn’t end up in prison. (Which he might.)

With Eric launching a battle against boredom, this campaign used a body bag motif and irreverent style to create memorable moments that fit Opera GX’s tone, while getting the message out to the gaming public that Opera GX is the browser of choice. Even the wardrobe featured a graffiti-style screen printing of the Opera GX logo across jackets, shirts, and ties, for a bit of visual flair.

Auryn Hiscock, Creative Lead, Gaming, Opera GX, said: “this campaign, by the talented folks over at Waste, reminds you of that, and inspires you to question whether the browser you’re using is actually good or just some BS your system tray inherited. Our money is on the latter.”

The Teaser

The teaser, released a few weeks before the main film, stimulated the imagination of the audience with a short 30-second snippet of what was to come. “Your browser’s f*****g terrifying. I’m going to bury boring,’ he whispers, his bloody face ready to enter your worst nightmares.

The community responded with an overwhelming positive sentiment. "Ammm this was... Kind of funny... Opera GX always being creative hahah,” someone said. And our personal favourite: “I didn't need to poop my pants first thing in the morning like this.”

Mission accomplished. 🔥

The Hero Film

Our hero film was a surreal, chaos-infused, horror-inspired two-minute spectacle. It sees Eric embark on a rampage to steal the devices of boring internet users using other browsers. In a semi-scripted film, Eric crashes through daily life situations as he destroys the devices of boring, lagging, buffering internet users.

In one vignette, an older woman is trying to load a website called Dating for the Dying. André rushes in with an axe, smashes the woman’s computer, stuffs it in his body bag, and screams, “You’re wasting time you don’t have!” You get the idea.

Our hero film was shot over 3 days, in three different London locations, including the famous Bishopsgate Library. The final film needed a rich but slightly retro quality to feel otherworldly, so the entire grade was put through an emulator to give it a DV camera look that was then overlaid on the footage to give it a unique grade.

The Cutdowns

As well as the hero film, we also created a suite of cut-downs, vignettes, gifs and stills to be used across social, making the most of the assets:

Benny Bentham, Creative Director, Waste Creative, added: “The “Bury Boring” concept set out to take an axe to boring browsers with a fun, insistently memorable campaign that grabs the attention of mainstream gamers and shows Opera GX to be the antidote to boring browser behaviour. It was written especially for Eric André—he was our first and only choice—so putting his anarchic, chaotic and surreal personality front and centre gave him room to add his own special dose of comedy chaos to each scene. The final result was, as you might expect, anything but boring.”

Results

The campaign's disruptive and memorable approach aimed to challenge the status quo in the browser industry, encouraging users to explore Opera GX as the ultimate solution for gamers seeking an exciting and efficient browsing experience. And the community immediately went to town creating their own memes from the film.