ABOUT

Background
For nearly a decade, Stranger Things fans have been piecing together Hawkins, trying to get closer to a world they’ve only ever seen on their screens. The Microsoft Flight Simulator x Stranger Things DLC promised a world-first: a 1:1 digital recreation of Hawkins.

But with a fiercely protective fanbase, every part of the campaign had to feel like it truly belonged in Hawkins, circa 1986.

Idea
Known for government cover-ups, missing persons and interdimensional horror, Hawkins is the last place you’d book a sightseeing tour. So, with the help of the Duffer Brothers, we launched one: Hawkins Heli-Tours. But in true Stranger Things style, nothing was as it seemed.

Beneath the tourism campaign hid a covert recruitment operation for pilots, masterminded by Murray Bauman. Through hidden codes, calls and covert missions, we pulled fans deeper into their own Hawkins conspiracy.

The entire campaign followed one core principle: “Marketing like it’s 1986.” Because Stranger Things doesn’t feel nostalgic. It feels lived-in. So every touchpoint intentionally downgraded modern digital experiences into analogue ones.

At the centre of the campaign sat the Microsoft Cube in Times Square: three pristine digital screens in the middle of Manhattan.

Rather than simply running retro creative across digital screens, we re-engineered the Cube into “the world’s largest CRT monitor.” Three pristine ultra-HD displays became a single giant 3D analogue artefact from the 1980s. Two media surfaces were sacrificed entirely to create the sides of the monitor itself, while the central screen remained fixed.

The Cube broadcast cutdowns of our hero film while aviation signalling directed passersby to our experiential installation at the Microsoft Experience Centre a few blocks away.

We recreated CRT curvature, scanlines, signal flicker, screen glare, VHS tape loading, degraded textures, phosphor dots, even the nicotine-yellowed ageing synonymous with 1980s office hardware.

Downgrading the digital into something that felt airlifted straight out of Hawkins.