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Key Takeaways:
- Microsoft’s 1975-themed activation at Build 2025 celebrated its 50th year with retro tech and immersive developer challenges.
- Assembly and Missing Pieces brought the concept to life with period-accurate design, storytelling, and interactive installations.
- A digital version on GitHub ensured the nostalgic experience reached remote devs worldwide.
Microsoft is going retro, turning back the clock at this year’s Build conference.
To celebrate the company's 50th anniversary, the tech giant recreated a 1975-era dev workspace complete with throwback coding challenges and vintage computers.
Dubbed “The Original Build,” the experience was more than just a themed booth.
Microsoft partnered with Assembly and design firm Missing Pieces to craft a fully immersive activation that honored the company’s roots while looking ahead.
Inspired by the startup atmosphere where Bill Gates and Paul Allen first founded Microsoft, the space was built to give developers a taste of what it was like to code at the dawn of the PC era.
"It’s a rare opportunity that you get to work with a company with such an iconic and impactful origin story, much less bring it to life in a playful and immersive way," Edelman ECD Jeremy Bernstein told DesignRush.
"Hopefully, we’ve proven that with a little creativity, B2B doesn’t have to be boring. This has been a "pinch me" project for our team to work on with our friends at Microsoft."
Attendees stepped into a period-accurate ‘70s office, from the furniture down to the fashion, where they completed timed coding activities on “sleeper PCs.”
These retro-styled machines, modeled after the Altair 8800, ran on modern microcomputers and cloud tools like Microsoft Copilot and Azure.
Those who completed all challenges were rewarded with custom retro employee badges and saw their names added to a leaderboard.
"The Original Build’ is a fresh take on experiential storytelling, designed to celebrate the people building the future," Microsoft Corporate VP for Marketing Experiences Jessica Daughetee shared with DesignRush.
"Every detail is intentionally designed to celebrate 50 years of Microsoft and invite developers to imagine what’s next.
From the ‘70s-inspired design to interactive coding challenges, it’s an immersive tribute to innovation.”
Activations like this highlight how brand storytelling, when paired with purposeful design, can blur the line between nostalgia and tech innovation.
It's a growing trend that more adtech agencies are embracing through story-led brand activations.
A Blast from the Past
Inside the experience, visitors unlocked hidden moments as they progressed.
This included receiving cryptic phone calls from developers, to watching forgotten footage from Microsoft’s archives.
Real 1970s artifacts, including team photos and recruitment forms, were scattered throughout the space for fans to find.
The build-out included a zone for creators, where execs and influencers could share personal origin stories.
Some appearances were even teased by top names like Linus Tech Tips.
The PC-building YouTuber even contributed his own “sleeper PC” design for the event, just months after his appearance on "The Tonight Show."
For fans at home, Microsoft recreated the experience digitally via GitHub.
Visitors to the online repo were met with an old-school, text-adventure interface filled with ASCII animations, mini-games, and nods to developer lore.
All are designed to replicate in-person coding challenges.
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But the campaign didn’t stop with code and nostalgia marketing.
Limited-edition merchandise, including velour tracksuits, tote bags, and trucker caps, was handed out onsite, giving attendees a wearable piece of the experience.
For Microsoft, this wasn’t just about looking back.
It was a way to celebrate the self-taught, passionate developer spirit that helped build the company, which still drives its community today.
In other news, Method recently launched its own activation at Coachella, sparking a 1351% surge in impressions.
Want to create moments your audience won’t forget? Explore top experiential marketing agencies from our directory:
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