Microsoft NZ is giving Kiwis the chance to bring their dreams to the surface in a new competition campaign, with the help of Y&R, in which one winner will receive a year’s salary to unleash their creativity.
To promote the new Microsoft Surface Book, the ‘Bring your Dream to the Surface’ campaign is a competition targeting Kiwis who harbour a secret creative passion but have not been able to make it a reality because of their nine to five job. Entrants are required to submit their creative ideas at winayear.co.nz and the best will be chosen by a panel of judges.
The winner gets to take home a Microsoft Surface Book and $60,000 to take the year off and go and follow that dream.
Windows and Surface product marketing manager Jordanna Murray says the winner’s passion could be anything from film, design and music to arts and crafts.
“What’s so brilliant about this is we are not defining creativity for the individual, we are saying ‘you tell us what you want to do that’s creative’, and that’s their entry,” she says. “Everyone has something they love doing and you look at the type of content that we have today, the number of YouTube channels and Instagrams and blogs, everyone is creative and only a few people are getting to turn that into reality or their everyday life.”
Murray says the Microsoft Surface is a tool that enables creativity to happen. She says in both laptop mode, or tablet mode using the surface pen, it’s easy to make creative content.
The campaign will be promoted through print, vertical, real job advertisements, digital, OOH and social media, and Murray says the genius of the idea is how Microsoft is talking about it.
Her favourite execution is the resignation letters in print publications targeting builders and people to work in hospitality.
The letter begins with ‘It’s my great pleasure to inform you that today will be my last day’, before going onto explain ‘now I will be following my dream of [insert dream here]’.
The letters encourage a call of action to enter the competition.
Microsoft has a history of pushing the boundaries of creative marketing and Murray says this latest campaign hopes to create a unique Kiwi flavour as it’s the first time it’s reached out to such a broad audience.
Recently Microsoft teamed up with Fairfax, profiling five New Zealanders who specialised in different fields: a Māori doctor on a mission to inspire other Māori into careers in medicine, an Otago University scientist leading climate change research, an award-winning interior designer, a lawyer-turned peanut butter maker and a DJ and software entrepreneur.
Fairfax said at the time the idea was to link the Microsoft Surface with innovation and achieving the extraordinary.
Previous campaigns include social media competitions and partnerships with different artists.
