2010 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The world was looking forward to the big launch of Microsoft Windows 7. But were the Microsoft Gulf employees ready for it? We had to generate excitement about it and at the same time convert each and every employee into a master of Windows 7, before they went out and marketed it to customers. Our campaign literally converted the corporate Microsoft Gulf offices into Kung fu CAMPS! Where every employee would train, learn the moves, test their skills and become masters of Windows 7. Therefore, regular training was turned into an interactive, fun and engaging process.

Success of the Campaign

Almost everyone across sales, marketing, management and senior management participated. The online martial art movie spoofs were absolutely loved, causing laughter and furore in their otherwise strict corporate environment. Employees were seen having fun and discussing their colleagues who had featured on elevator stickers in actual Kung fu costumes. The most important outcome - our kung fu CAMP managed to train, test and get employees ready for this mega launch. This campaign was so successful that Microsoft marketing teams have been featuring it as a case study across markets for future internal readiness programs.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

3 challenges were launched. One asking them to train, the other to test their knowledge and the third invited them to give ideas for the Windows 7 launch. As a kick off, we created a multi-touch point campaign starring Microsoft employees themselves in karate costumes handing out head-bands to colleagues and even featuring on elevator stickers in kung fu poses. The formal and corporate office environments saw ambient stuff like punch bags hanging around. There were big cushions left around asking employees to sit and meditate on big launch ideas for Windows 7. In the pantry, regular mugs were wrapped with interesting messaging. Exciting posters came up, asking and reminding everyone to take part in the 3-step online challenge and become a Master. Weekly emails for the 3 challenges with spoofs of martial art movies were sent and followed up by reminder innovative desk-drops like chopsticks and Tiger balms.