Internet Provider oxio Celebrates the Weird and Wonderful Online World

Reflecting the strange and silly cultural engine which is the internet, oxio has evolved their distinctive look and feel with an elevated brand platform and new campaign: ‘Born to be online.’ From their digital-first approach to their tongue and cheek tone, oxio has always gone against the grain, and this campaign follows suit. By using AI and image generation tools, oxio has created a surreal world that blends real and digital scenarios to form playful and relatable internet metaphors. This campaign, alongside their refreshed brand platform, was brought to life in partnership with global creative brand experience company, TBWA\Canada, in collaboration with Tam-Tam\TBWA.

The launch of ‘Born to be online’ introduces oxio’s view of how internet providers should treat their customers - listening to, and treating them with, the respect they deserve. As an online-only internet service provider, oxio isn’t weighed down by decades of traditional telco practices and has proven this with their fair and transparent prices, simple processes, and customer-obsessed approach.

This year, driven by the desire to authentically connect with Canadians and inspired by conversations with them, oxio launched a refreshed brand that doubled down on their promises of keeping the internet simple and fair while putting customers first - all while growing up alongside their audience. Always bringing their fun, authentic, and unabashedly ‘tell it like it is’ attitude, oxio wanted to ensure they were representing their audiences, not just the internet-native gen z’s.

“We used one of the cultural edges from our Backslash tool, called Gap Collapse. The Backslash program acts as a radar, finely tuned to what matters most to our audience and where they are heading culturally and Gap Collapse is about the very real consequences of rising inequality. As people are looking for ways to rebalance the scales, unlocking that access for them is a big market opportunity. Going into this campaign we were very aware of the strong feeling of unfairness that people are struggling with right now in the face of economic inequalities. oxio's proposition truly is built to bring fairness back to a service category ripe for disruption.” said Sam Nipius, senior strategist, TBWA\Canada.

"We knew it was time to refine the oxio brand to better connect with our audience, but we wanted to keep the mischievous oxio spirit. Our core hasn’t changed, we’re still all about putting customers first with a simple and fair internet experience. With this evolved brand platform, we’re embracing what makes oxio, oxio: our honesty, defiant attitude, and deep, unglossed connection to the internet. We get our customers because, just like them, we were born to be online." said Ranya Bouthaim, brand manager at oxio.

Knowing that most brands use the same overly glossed visuals and language that feels deeply unrelatable (we aren’t all just scrolling on our couch!), oxio did what they do best: the exact opposite. In an increasingly AI-ified world, oxio flexed their chronically online clout to lean heavily into these image creation tools to bring their campaign to life while relying on the guidance of the thoughtful humans behind the wheel. “The visual production of the campaign relied heavily on Omni AI tools. We started by developing a custom agent with specific parameters for text-to-text generation in order to craft effective prompts that capture the new oxio brand photography style. We then took the prompts to Imagen 3 to generate a library of static imagery with some being enhanced with motion using Runway/Veo 2. We also worked closely with the OAI team for additional support in prompt engineering/fine-tuning, and upscaling of the assets.” said Philippe Visaya, senior art director, TBWA\Canada.

oxio’s new visual style and tone has managed to balance the defiance and transparency they’re known for, with the dependability and inclusivity they’ve been looking for - all wrapped up with a warm mischievous quality and cheeky aesthetic. The ‘Born to be online’ campaign and refreshed platform launched on March 31st across Canada on OLV, Social, OOH and Radio.