Our challenge was that no one thinks they need OneNote. Merely selling the benefits of another Microsoft application - however useful - simply wouldn’t work. So we decided to dramatise the idea that pen and paper are just not up to the job through the proposition 'stationery is bad'. To reach our audience in their environment, we created the first ever Microsoft viral campaign – three unbranded, humorous office-based films that vividly demonstrated our point. Viewers were directed to a microsite where OneNote was revealed as the solution, and they were prompted to try OneNote for themselves through a free trial.

The campaign broke new ground for Microsoft and for virals, with its three layers of action rewarding repeat viewing and encouraging forwarding with comments like "funny video – watch people in the background, too", and "you’ll never guess who’s at the address at the end!" Each viral was viewed by an estimated 1.5 million people within a week (100% above the norm). All three went straight to No1 in the Kontraband chart and received an average 87% rating on boreme.com. Hits to the website were well in excess of target, and 14% of site visitors downloaded the trial version.