Wonder Woman 1984 pits our heroine against a villain who uses technology for greed and evil. We needed to craft a campaign that authentically tied the upcoming film’s theme of “good vs. greed” to Microsoft’s mission of empowering people to achieve more. Our goal was to tell a new story that fueled brand love on both sides of the partnership and inspire the next generation of coders to regard technology not as a passive tool, but as an instrument for good.

Technology empowers good people to do great things—even to superheroes. We expanded the WW84 universe with mysterious co-branded experiences, calling for fans to help Wonder Woman recover her missing sword and shield in an internet-wide scavenger hunt. Each digital experience was a technical challenge requiring skills from codebreaking to HTML to progress the mystery, which could be learned through Microsoft’s digital WW84-themed STEM courses and completed on their mobile device. Fans learned block-based coding to make their own arcade game, explored basic Python programming, and even built and coded their own light-up gauntlets. And the more they learned, the more they earned. Completing each challenge unlocked a new tier of prizes that Wonder Woman fans would love.

In WW84, Wonder Woman must turn technology used for power and corruption into a solution for the greater good. This was our authentic way in. Using Microsoft and Warner Brothers owned and operated channels, we released cryptic social posts over two weeks driving to digital challenges set in the WW84 universe. All based around the compelling truth at the heart of what both Wonder Woman and Microsoft stand for: empowering people to use their skills, smarts, and teamwork to achieve great things and make the world a better place.

To invite fans into this new WW84 adventure, we kicked off an internet-wide scavenger hunt. The mission began with a briefing video on owned and operated socials channels explaining that Wonder Woman’s sword and shield have gone missing, and the only way to recover them is by completing a series of challenges that uncovered the secret codewords hidden within them. For two weeks, we released cryptic social posts containing a clue to the challenge at hand. The heroes who submitted some, or all, of the codewords on a mission hub website were given the chance to win a Surface Prize Pack and opportunity to nominate a classroom or educator to receive 10 Surface Book 3s to further STEM education. At the end of the hunt, we encouraged participants to continue honing their digital skills through WW84-themed STEM courses on Microsoft.com.

Not only did we bring both Microsoft and Wonder Woman fans together across social platforms to solve the challenges at hand, but the partnership generated over 19 million impressions, 1.7 million video views on social, and logged nearly 15,000 completed challenges with an average 2:26 spent on site. Best of all, the number of sweepstakes entrants—which had a barrier of entry of completing five technical challenges—was just shy of 3% less than the 2020 Super Bowl sweepstakes with Katie Sowers despite zero promotion. These results are super. But more importantly, the campaign celebrated what’s possible when curious minds meet incredible technology and showed the next generation of coders that their passion has the power to save the world.