In the wake of its Microsoft Build developer conference last month in Seattle, the software giant has launched an ad campaign, “Yours To Build,” that celebrates the coder community. 

The campaign, from Stagwell’s Code And Theory puts developers—and their creativity—in the spotlight with ads that celebrate what developers do, sometimes with nods and Easter Eggs that only “real developers” will catch, according to the agency.   

During the spots developers are seen toiling at their craft with a rubber duck for debugging at the corner of a desk and Github and Octocat stickers lurking in the background. 

Coders are well known for verbalizing code line by line to rubber ducks (or other inanimate objects) as a way identifying errors or bugs in code. GitHub is a platform where coders collaborate and Octocat (a character that combines features of a cat and an octopus) is GitHub’s mascot.  

And a figurine of “Clippy,” the Microsoft office assistant is seen on a bookshelf. 

Running across CTV, paid and organic social, display and digital OOH placements, the campaign includes a flagship 30-second film, shorter creative cuts and banners—all anchored in Microsoft's focus on putting developers and their worlds at the forefront.  

For the Microsoft Build event, Microsoft, Code and Theory and sibling creative technology agency Left Field Labs created an interactive installation and microsite dubbed the “Connection Wall at Microsoft Build.” It was designed to bridge the experience between 4,000 in-person attendees and 200,000 virtual participants at the event. 

To connect, developers were asked to sign into the experience via their LinkedIn profiles and were given a series of questions to make their experience at the event more personal. Answers were used to recommend sessions and generate a personalized 8-bit avatar likenesses, displaying their developer communities and primary programming languages. The avatars then populated the desktop and physical experience of the wall.  

Michel Treff, CEO of Code and Theory says, “‘Yours to build’ embraces developers as individuals and as a community. We wanted to bring them in deeper into all of the tools being unveiled at Microsoft Build and then get out of their way and let them build the future.” 

Pictured above are avatars developed for attendees of last month's Microsoft Build developer conference.