Into the Breach

The shift to remote work brought flexibility for most employees. But for IT and InfoSec teams, it was a cybersecurity crisis in the making. With threats on the rise, Gartner predicted nearly half of global companies would face a cyberattack by 2025.

While Microsoft offers some of the most advanced cybersecurity solutions in the market, they needed to break through entrenched perceptions. In cybersecurity, Microsoft can still be seen as a newcomer to some organizations.

Rather than go broad, Microsoft decided to run a focused proof-of-concept campaign to engage a strategic set of enterprise accounts. The goals: engage five target accounts, drive a 25% lift in security license purchases, and a 50% lift in active license usage.

And one qualitative ask: “Show up differently.”

We zeroed in on a very specific audience: Information Security (InfoSec) teams inside enterprise organizations. These professionals were overworked, often logging 12-hour days, and decompressing by playing video games.

That insight inspired the breakthrough concept: Into the Breach—a gamified learning experience that put InfoSec teams in the role of a Cyber Defense Analyst during a live cyberattack. Their mission? Discover the breach, identify the threat, and contain it using Microsoft’s security tools.

The experience was tightly orchestrated:

• Field sellers invited security teams to host private, virtual game sessions.
• Participants registered through a landing page and received an orientation kit with platform access.
• Microsoft technical specialists were on standby to assist in real time.
• After the game, team leads received a tailored proposal to implement Microsoft’s security solutions.

The look and feel mirrored a Call of Duty-style interface, complete with mission briefings, battle rooms, and gamer profiles. We brought the same rigor to demand generation, activating the program via a combined field and LinkedIn strategy to engage only top-priority accounts.

The pilot surpassed every metric. Participation exceeded expectations, with strong uptake across strategic enterprise accounts and widespread engagement from InfoSec teams.

License purchase growth hit 122%, nearly five times the initial target. Active usage jumped more than 200%, quadrupling expectations.

The program was declared a new best practice and is now scaling across industries and geographies. What began as a pilot is now scaling globally, setting a new bar for how Microsoft brings cybersecurity solutions to market.