Marketing communications: Microsoft Mac Office

Developing propositions that challenge customer perceptions

The brief

To develop a creative poster campaign promoting Mac:office, and to encourage devoted Mac users to purchase Microsoft office products.

The campaign concentrated on the next generation of Mac:office users - design students. The majority of the audience are Mac devotees, i.e. like to think differently, have an appreciation of what is 'cool', what's in and what's out. They are very aware of contemporary culture and trends, and an office productivity suite for the Mac from Microsoft does not rate very highly on their radar.

The purpose of the campaign was to capture concisely all the key upgrade/purchase messages and 'speak' to the audience in a relevant yet unexpected manner about Mac:office. It needed to capture the audience's imagination and build on the awareness of Office 2004.

The solution

By relating Mac:office to these simple yet invaluable office products we subliminally delivered the message that Mac:office helps you to work smarter so that you have more time to spend on being creative. These messages were further reinforced in the body copy and the pricing solution, to encourage potential consumers to take up the offer.

"A challenging brief and an innovative creative response from The Team that really brought our key message to life in a way that would make our target audience take notice. This campaign illustrates wonderfully that functional quality can be just as beautiful as aesthetic quality. We loved the simplicity and the treatment of the concept was even more stunning on final creative than we expected. We're delighted with the result."
Melissa Dewick, Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft UK