2012 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

Microsoft Middle East & Africa (MEA) wanted to get its employees across many offices excited about their consumer products division which handles brands such as Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, Windows Live Essentials, Internet Explorer 9 and Xbox. We had to increase their awareness about these products and get their attention, cutting through the clutter of e-mails and letters they receive everyday.

Creative Execution

MEA Matters is a page often visited by Microsoft MEA employees to connect with their colleagues across the region in an informal online space. By hosting the game here, we gave them a chance to play and compete in the open with the added element of social interaction such as shares, comments and status updates about the game. Microsoft office love competing with each other, and this game brought out that competitive spirit by rewarding the winners at regular intervals – we also had a competitive leaderboard which they could access through Windows Phone 7.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

An interactive game – Towerplay that pitted them against each other, hosted on a Facebook page (MEA Matters) accessible only to Microsoft MEA employees. On signing in, employees got a small plot of land with a tower on it. Every day, three questions based on Microsoft consumer products were posed to them, and every correct answer added a floor to their tower while wrong answers knocked a floor off. They could challenge their colleagues to play against them, and win prizes at every level. The objective was to play up their competitive spirit and increase awareness through the questions.

Results

The game was developed with a budget of $40,000 over a period of four months. In all, the campaign reached 1000 Microsoft MEA employees, pushing a further 300 to join the Facebook group to play the game. In the process, they all got educated about Microsoft’s consumer products through a fun, engaging activity.