What it had to solve
Windows had revolutionised how people use technology, but Gen Z, who met computers as preteens in the 2010s, saw it as background infrastructure. With Windows 11, the first OS release in five years, imminent, Microsoft wanted the product launch to double as the launch of the @Windows TikTok account and make the brand feel joyful to a generation that filters out advertising.
The idea
Get meme logo designer Emily Zugay to satirically redesign the Windows logo, then treat the joke as official launch creative
How it works
Digital agency Superdigital set the @Windows account to follow Zugay exclusively and ran a commenting strategy, engaging her new videos with pleas for a Windows logo redesign until she agreed. She gave the four-paned window logo her treatment — replacing the blue squares with a photo of her face — and posted her satirical redesign video. Microsoft then placed her logo front and centre on the Windows New York flagship storefront and shared it on TikTok.
What it did
The TikTok community 'went wild' and, per the case study, was still going 'more years later'; the redesign propelled Windows 11 into the cultural consciousness of a new generation and anchored a multiyear partnership with Zugay.
Background
Gen Z consumers who met computers as preteens in the 2010s grew up inside a world shaped by Microsoft without noticing. Windows was infrastructure, not a brand they felt anything about. As Windows 11 — the first operating system release in five years — approached launch, the plan was to align the product launch with the launch of the @Windows account on TikTok, the platform where that generation actually lived.
The strategy was a multiyear partnership with content creator and self-styled 'logo designer' Emily Zugay, famous for deadpan, deliberately terrible redesigns of brand logos. To prove Microsoft was serious, the @Windows account followed her exclusively, then commented on her new videos with pleas for a Windows logo redesign until she agreed.
Zugay replaced the four blue squares of the window logo with a photo of her face and posted her satirical redesign. Microsoft went further than a reply: it put her logo front and centre on the Windows New York flagship storefront and shared it on TikTok, where the community 'went wild' — and, per the case, kept going years later.
Why it lands
The brand treated a parody as a brief: instead of protecting the logo, it chased the parody, which is what made the partnership credible on a platform allergic to ads.
The staged courtship — following one account exclusively, pleading in comments — gave TikTok a narrative to watch unfold, not just an asset to scroll past.
Taking the joke into the physical world (the New York flagship storefront) signalled the company was in on it, converting a TikTok bit into mainstream launch imagery.
What you can take
Handing your logo to its parodist buys what ads cannot: a brand that asks to be mocked by the right creator earns permission to speak to ad-blind audiences.
Since then
The case describes the Zugay work as the start of a multiyear partnership and says the community response continued 'more years later'. LBB added the work to its Creative Library in December 2023. (A separate 2025 entry in this library covers Zugay's later Axe can.)
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