A brush by brush account of the hand painted

Microsoft Surface campaign by Colossal Media

Eleven walls and multiple hand paint

productions—all with less than a month

turn around time. This was the task

to be completed by Colossal for an

unidentified client. The suspense was

high. Not until the art was delivered

and the production commenced was

Colossal informed that the client was

Microsoft for the soon-to-launch

Surface Windows RT-powered tablet.

The art was simple yet powerful. Colossal

first painted unbranded boxes. This initial

hand paint production elicited curiosity

from passersby.

A few days later, the word Surface was

painted in the first box of all walls. With

just the word Surface painted, consumers

paused and took notice of the street art that

lacked the usual advertising message.

Finally, Colossal returned to the walls and

painted a keyboard within the second box.

The messaging was complete, but still

with no tag line or copy. Microsoft truly

embraced an artistic approach to driving

awareness for the Surface tablet.

The following pages capture the artisanal

spirit of the campaign and the journey of the

Colossal crew who worked on the project.

“I love this idea of advertisement.

Microsoft is expressing a clean start

with Windows 8 and WP8. I think it’s

refreshing and definitely will catch

the eyes of any pedestrian. Grade A

for efort Microsoft”—Eli_thegr8

THEVERGE.COM

Microsoft Surface street

art ads appear in New York. Aug 23, 2012. 174 coments, 658 tweets, 372 Likes

“I like the purple one especially.

It reminds me of the painted ads

you’d get in Victorian times painted

onto the sides of buildings. Much

nicer than a billboard. I do hope it

washes of okay, though.”—Wowser

Geekwire

Microsoft Surface street art in New York: Pricing next?

Aug 24, 2012

CNET

Microsoft Surface street art ads pop up in NYC

Aug 24, 2012

buzz! post!

PC Magazine

Microsoft Surface street

art appears in NYC

August 24, 2012

Softpedia

Yet another Microsoft

Surface Street Ad

September 14, 2012

tweet!like!

@colossalmedia

“Chicago drivers are not to be

messed with. I was painting the

wall on North Damen when I heard

a maniac revving up his diesel

Volkswagen. I noticed pretty

quickly that this guy either didn’t

see me or didn’t care so I barrel

rolled with my paintbrush brush

out of his way. He didn’t hit me or

my paint bucket so I ate a braut and

called it a day.”

“The limited branding

definitely had the ef ect of

drawing people in to check

out the art. I had the chance

to talk about the texturing I

was doing with a local artist.

She took a few pics of the

wall and then took down my

number -Score!”

“Painting the same location three

times really kept the campaign

fresh. You could see the same faces

walking by for each new phase. This

one old hippy in LA kept asking me

if the keyboard I painted actually

worked. I told him, ’Only if you have

the password.’”

“Miami was a trip because we lost most of the

first day to thunderstorms. We had to get up mad

early on the last day, bang out the final touches,

and haul ass down the freeway in the rental

truck, straight to airport. I was covered in pink

and blue paint with no time to change before

the flight so the stewardess made me sit on a

poncho. At least the grandma sitting on my right

bought me a rum and Coke.”

“Replicating the original brick

background of the wall was a cool

challenge. Creative campaigns

like this one are what keep my job

interesting. That and spending most

of my day strapped to a rig 60 feet

above the sidewalk.”

“Having 7 walls go up in one day

in New York was intense. I started

the day climbing up a 40 ft ladder

at dawn in Brooklyn and finished

the night on a lift in Tribeca. Just

like Jay-Z, right? Haha.”

MICROSOFT ®

299c

SURFACE ®

219c

This book was produced by Colossal Media for Microsoft. All content ©2012 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Agencies

Starcom MediaVest Group, Pastilla Studio &Wunderman

All locations were part of Colossal’s perma-nent inventory and were painted in-house by Colossal Media.

Colossal Media is the largest hand paint mural and outdoor advertising company in the United States. We hand paint large-scale photorealistic murals, art projects, advertis-ing campaigns and more in New York City and 18 other major markets with an eficiency and precision that is unmatched.

COLOSSAL MEDIA

176 North 9th stBrooklyn, NY 11211718.858.0979colossalmedia.com