Where ideas collide

Client

Microsoft

Agency

Instrument

Services

Creative Direction
End to End Creative

The world’s most powerful tools, free

In 2025, Microsoft turns 50 and marks over 37 years of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. A legacy, yes—but legacy doesn’t have to mean old. The challenge: take M365, a suite of tools that once felt corporate and distant, and make it what it’s always been at its best—intuitive, open, made for anyone with an idea. This campaign isn’t just about explaining. It’s about turning curiosity into trust and interest into action.

We positioned Microsoft 365 not as an answer, but as a set of tools. Free tools, open to anyone, anywhere. Tools that have always changed the game. Tools that don’t care who you are, where you come from, or what you’re starting—only that you start. Because Gen Z isn’t here to follow instructions. They’re here to write their own.

Collision leads to creation

We held tight to the truth that Gen Z was born into noise—feeds that never stop, systems that don’t work, and choices that pile up faster than they can clear them. It’s not their chaos, but it’s theirs to deal with. They collaborate without asking permission. They experiment without fear of failure. They create not because they have to, but because they can.

Storytelling through UI

To achieve this, we created a narrative centering around three power users of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint planning a vacation in unconventional ways: chatting in Word, brainstorming in PowerPoint and building their party deck, footage turning into illustrations within Excel cells, and cursors dancing.

To highlight the collaboration within this space, we centered the narrative within UI, but focusing on those moments when people come together and work in real time to create something new.

Built with AI and code

We wanted to celebrate those unconventional uses by creating them ourselves: we knew early on we wanted to create our own art within Excel.

To do this, we utilized code to create a script that allowed us to turn imagery into actual Excel windows, leading to full animations created within Excel frames.

How it came together

Our campaign was born from our strategic foundation and manifesto and included a hero video alongside three cutdowns for each tool as well as one focusing on collaboration. We built out site assets to house signups for WXP and created social assets and display ads to bring in new eyes. To bring it all together, we partnered with VICE to extend the reach of the campaign, providing insight that led to the creation of “The VICE Guide to Pitching” as an additional driver to our campaign landing page.

Further Extension

We created several variations based on our client’s goals. Below is a couple examples of cutdowns, tailored per individual app, that were placed on TikTok to engage a Gen Z audience.