Windows’ landscape wallpapers are arguably the most recognizable piece of the Windows operating system; in fact, the original ‘Bliss” background is often credited with being the most viewed photo of all time. So, when Windows launched a new category of PC’s in the modern era of AI, we set out to reimagine what a new generation of Windows's wallpapers could look like. Our goal was to drive awareness of the new Copilot+PCs, Windows 11 and Copilot in a one-of-a-kind photography challenge.
To drive awareness of our new Copilot+ PCs, Windows 11 AI features, and Copilot, we challenged photography creators from seven of Microsoft’s key, global regions to plan and capture the ultimate Windows background - an iconic piece of our OS. Once all photos were captured, we opened it up to the community to vote for their favorites. The only rules were using the device in a way that felt authentic to them, and to go get that once-in-a-lifetime shot - a seemingly straightforward ask, that also came with its unique challenges.
When concepting the campaign, the tech industry was oversaturated, with many competitors also launching new products & offerings at the same time. We knew in order to stand out, we had to take a unique approach to who we cast as partners in the journey to get the epic shot. From the work we’ve done for Microsoft across organic social, we’ve learned that some of the most effective partnerships for tech brands aren’t the expected or more traditional Creators. In fact, we tend to find that niche subcommunities are where experts and hobbyists alike turn to for advice, tips, and tricks on the latest product offerings. We took this approach when launching the Copilot+ PC’s, tapping into a tech adjacent community - photographers - who had credibility in their field, to showcase how the latest in Microsoft’s hardware and software helps level up their craft. By doing this, we were able to build awareness & consideration of Copilot+ PC’s with a highly engaged community of tech enthusiasts, in a non-traditional way that stood out amongst competitors.
When it came to choosing the Creators to work with, we knew we needed this campaign to feel larger than life, fully global, and cinematic to really capture the sleekness and complexity of the product. And despite the rules for the campaign being fairly simple, we knew that posed a huge challenge to find Creators who could own the entire process from start to finish in front of and behind the camera - from planning and capturing content to editing everything on their own and creating behind the scenes content.
The sheer scale of having seven different people, with seven different styles, all commit to plan, travel, self shoot + edit, at the highest level was our main challenge - if one member of the expedition didn’t go all-in, the whole campaign could lose its efficacy + impact given the final part of the campaign was voting on users’ favorite image.
Our sound + selective creator strategy, open-ended brief, and the genuine excitement for the product + its features, resulted in a level of dedication we could have never imagined. Our out-of-this-world partners, all embarked on a multi-day journey, using their new device and the Microsoft AI suite to find the perfect location, determine the ideal lighting conditions, and prepare to capture their masterpiece -documenting it all in a global content series that was shared from owned and creator channels.
Fans then voted for their favorites in a bracket style Instagram Story smackdown to illustrate the excitement that bringing a part of the OS our users love - iconic landscape backgrounds - to the future can create. At the end of voting the response was so widely positive, we ended up creating a downloadable, custom Wallpaper Pack, that featured all seven creator’s images, officially solidifying them in Windows lore forever.
The campaign resulted in tons of online pickup, earned media + press coverage, 1,000,000+ organic views across platforms, over 50,000 engagements, and a final positive sentiment of 96%, which given this existed on 7 creator channels and our own, was pretty phenomenal to see both for the creators and the brand since the purpose was awareness + consideration for the new devices.
Cross-platform engagement rate for the campaign was 5.5%, which when compared to the average tech industry ER on social of ~2.9%, is also pretty astounding.
Lastly, we received thousands of votes in the final Instagram Story Smackdown, illustrating that our audiences really did care about the outcome of the campaign, many even rallying behind their favorites but reposting and commenting for viewers to vote them to the top. This sense of community building is always what we aim to achieve when tapping working with Creators, and the Wallpaper Expedition is a perfect example of this.
