Microsoft

After a redesign, Microsoft wanted to support the launch of Internet Explorer 9 and improve perception among technology trendsetters while getting the larger public to adopt it.

Techies and mainstream users both love games. So Microsoft created “The Battle for Beauty,” an game played online and in the real world, built in HTML5. Users could attack the ugly side of the web: wait time, privacy invasion and cluttered interfaces. Characters represented both the ugly, and the beautiful side that Microsoft champions.

Ugly critters were played by non-IE9 users, whose gaming experiences were limited, an incentive to upgrade their web experience by downloading IE9 directly from the game environment.

The game was projected onto multimedia screens on the streets of Toronto where passersby threw IE9 balls at ugly critters on the screen.

The event was supported by web banners, an email blast and other Microsoft network placements. Taxi created a Facebook event, published wall posts across Microsoft Canada fan pages, set up a Twitter account that was updated during the event, and built a behind-the-scenes Tumblr blog.

In the end, over 1,200 people participated and nearly two million impressions were reached in June alone. Furthermore, 55% of online players used Internet Explorer 9 to play the game, a conversion rate far beyond Microsoft’s wildest forecasts.