HELSINKI, FINLAND – Last October, Opera, the main competitor to Chrome, Firefox and Edge, launched a recruitment campaign offering the coolest job for anyone hooked to their screens. Opera was looking for a “Personal Browser”, a person whose only task would be to browse the web for fun and share the experience with the world. The winner will be hosting an experimental web series called “Wild Wild Web” starting on Feb 15. The series is based on different challenges showcasing the weirdest, darkest and craziest corners of the web.
Baby seals, memes, three-eyed cats, unicorns and so much more. These things are surely not the first to come to mind when thinking about a recruitment campaign. But that’s exactly what the Opera browser’s recent brand activation campaign was built around.
Last October, as part of wider brand cooperation with TBWA\ Helsinki, Opera launched what could be one of the most bizarre and intriguing recruitment campaigns ever. The goal of the campaign was to find a “Personal Browser,” a person whose only task would be to surf the web and share their shenanigans with the world over a period of two weeks.
“We indeed decided to look for a person to just surf the web for fun and actually get paid good money for it. We were looking for someone who has the guts to share their online experience with the world,” explained Maciej Wojcik, Director of Opera desktop browser marketing.
Personal Browser dives into the Wild Wild Web in online series
During the one-month application period, Opera received broad press coverage with 962 articles and social media hits along with more than 800 applications from all over the world. Eventually an American Youtuber, Gabe Helmy, was selected for the role of Opera’s Personal Browser due to his experience and background with finding the most bizarre things on the web. His compensation for the two-week browsing period will be $9,000.
Gabe’s role as the first-ever Personal Browser is to host a new experimental web series “Wild Wild Web,” where he will surf the far corners of the web and reveal all those places people browse in private. The series, premiering on February 15, will consist of 6 episodes and a live stream session. The episodes will be based on different challenges that can be anything from harmlessly trolling random people online to learning a viral TikTok dance.
In Wild Wild Web miniseries our Personal Browser, @GabeHelmy, will embark on a mission to find the most bizarre things on the web.🕵️♂️
Premiering February 15.🚀Find out more: https://t.co/HuoaoZ8KP8 pic.twitter.com/ykWIyngPv0
— Opera (@opera) February 10, 2021
Soon Opera will begin the recruitment process for a Personal Browser in Germany, and they are currently exploring even more bizarre ways of hiring their next star. The creative partner behind the idea is the advertising agency TBWA\ Helsinki.
“We wanted to showcase what people around the world do on the web when no one’s watching, and highlight that, for all these things, there’s a personal browser. With this online series we are celebrating the internet, but more importantly the freedom to be yourself, both online and offline,” says Otto Kilpiö, Copywriter from TBWA\ Helsinki.
