McCann London creates Shadow Posters to launch Microsoft’s new matte black Surface Pro 6

On 16 October, Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 6 became generally available to buy in the UK, marking the first time a Surface has been offered in a matte black finish, a colour palette designed to encourage creative flow. In an era when distractions abound, having the technology effectively fade into the background helps people focus only on what truly matters.

So fittingly, McCann London’s launch campaign for the Surface Pro 6 is “designed to disappear”. The unconventional poster campaign achieves this feat by existing only as shadows. The Shadow Posters mimic the format and layout of regular outdoor ads, but are an innovative twist on the medium, avoiding the loud, bright colours of normal out-of-home (OOH) advertising in favour of darkness, in line with the new colour and finish of the device itself.

Jamie Mietz, EMEA creative director at McCann London, said: “Normally, posters are meant to distract you, but for a product that’s about focus and not being distracted, we took a new approach to outdoor. These Shadow Posters are a reinvention of the poster format, an OOH campaign that blends into its surroundings. Its impact comes from being low-impact.”

Gillian Binks, Surface Category Lead at Microsoft, said: “At Microsoft, we’re designing devices that we want people to be proud of. The aim of Surface is to become the essence of your creativity, to help you get into your flow and to be clear of all distractions.

“These Shadow Posters look to communicate that by putting people’s creativity and focus at the heart of the device, allowing the technology to become an essential part of their natural flow thus allowing everything else to disappear.”

The Shadow Posters went live in London on 17 October.