Wunderman and Microsoft launch India’s first teaching font celebrating 25 years of Office
As part of Microsoft Office’s ongoing 25th anniversary celebrations, Wunderman International India created a new font that functions as an interactive teaching tool. Specially designed to teach children to identify and memorize the English alphabet, Microsoft Primer font makes language lessons more engaging and accessible.
Developed to coincide with International Volunteer Day, Microsoft Primer makes becoming a volunteer teacher as easy as ABC.
Once the font is installed on your computer, all you have to do is open any Office document and select Microsoft Primer as your font of choice. Instantly, your keyboard turns into an interactive teaching tool that visually adds meaning to each individual letter. Typing “A” or “a” shows up as an apple or airplane on your screen, “B” or “b” becomes a ball or banana, and so on with the rest of the alphabet.
“Studies have shown that education is what we as a nation value most,” said Bhavna Kapur, India Business Lead for the Microsoft account at Wunderman International India. “Delving a little deeper, we discovered that according to popular sentiment, knowing English is key to finding a good job. So we decided to start at the basics. What if we could create a simple tool to teach the alphabet to young and old alike? The Microsoft Primer font is an extendable, functional idea that can be of benefit to anyone who wants to teach or learn English.”
“A large section of our society, especially youths, understand the value of education in uplifting the underprivileged,” said Rahul Guha, Managing Director at Wunderman International India. “They have actively taken up the cause to make a difference, and our font is a simple solution that supports their intent and vision.”
The Microsoft Primer font is part of Microsoft’s “#GreatThingsStartHere” campaign, which has set out to capture truly compelling stories about the unique and creative ways people use Microsoft Office. In India, Office is possibly one of the most taken-for-granted programs. Often associated with work, people use it every day and yet never think twice about it.
For their 25th anniversary, Microsoft Office wanted to start something great. As Dilpreeta Vasudeva, Senior Manager of Marketing at Microsoft Corporation, said, “Our brief to Wunderman was simple: Explore Microsoft Office and its features to create something that will be of use and value to everyone, and not just professionals. Our target group is anyone who has interacted with Microsoft Office in the past or is likely to use it in the future.”
To launch the font, Wunderman International India released a short video on International Volunteer Day. It featured an office worker who wanted to teach children living in a slum community.
“The video tells the story of how any regular office worker can now easily become a volunteer–all you need is a laptop and you’re ready to go,” said Indrajeet Bose, Executive Creative Director at Wunderman International India. “Microsoft Primer helps lower barriers to volunteering. Downloading the font happens at the click of a key and installing the font is equally simple. Now, any layman has the tools at hand to become a teacher!”
Within a week, with no promotion whatsoever, the font had been downloaded over 2,000 times. The video release was equally successful–within a few hours, it had been viewed more than 500 times.
“Microsoft Primer may be a straightforward idea with a simple execution,” said Alpna Manchanda, Executive Creative Director at Wunderman International India, “but it carries the immense potential to significantly impact our community and target audience.”