The Campaign

The idea was to not only get people to associate Surface with notebooks but to think of Surface as THE notebook. In other words, when people think of a notebook, they should think of Surface. To do this we created a classic competitive format featuring a series of fun, unique and modern "tests" between Surface and other notebooks.

Creative Execution

We launched a series of unconventional and experimental videos, along with a corresponding microsite. We leveraged the angle of Surface versus notebook to create social buzz and make it interesting. To fully involve the audience we picked out topics submitted by users and made videos based on them. These "creative comedy skits" gained a lot of attention early on and picked up steam throughout the campaign. We finished off by creating limited edition novelty notebook covers for users.

Sales increased 20% during the campaign period. We attracted 138,000 users with visits as long as 4 minutes. A survey we conducted after the campaign showed that 82% of consumers would consider purchasing Surface for their next laptop.

No matter what we did in the past, consumers were still confused about what the Surface actually was. We realized that rather than position the product differently, or try and convince consumers of something they were stubbornly refusing to let go of, it made more sense to get them thinking in a new way altogether. In the simplest terms, this meant not even thinking about computers, laptops or even technology, but something they were familiar with in a completely different space: notebooks. This was not only something they understood, more importantly it was something OUTSIDE the space they were stuck in mentally.