“As a designer, it’s probably the coolest thing you could possibly ever work on,” said Kathleen Hall, Microsoft’s chief brand officer. “Talk about a legacy—it’s not like an ad that’s going to disappear in 10 years from now.”

Around two years later, the result was ADLaM Display, a digital typeface that runs on all Microsoft 365 products and services. Microsoft also made the font open source and shared it with Google, making it even more available and useful in modern life.

The results

If the goal was to help the Fulani people participate in the digital economy with their native tongue while safeguarding their culture for future generations—and it was—Microsoft achieved its mission. ADLaM Display is now available on Microsoft 365 applications, such as Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Entrepreneurs to educators use it every day.

“Empowering people is what Microsoft has always been about,” said Shayne Millington, chief creative officer at McCann New York. Millington noted there’s no shortage of stories about the tech company tackling similar problems, whether that’s preserving languages or buildings. “This is not a new space,” she added.

Microsoft didn’t need a massive advertising campaign to promote its ADLaM project; a video and blog post documenting the process was enough to get the word out. Surveys found American consumers held a more positive view of Microsoft following its work on ADLaM Display.

Microsoft’s Hall described the publicity aspect as more of a pull than a push. “We let it find its audience,” she said.

In another sense, Microsoft’s products themselves acted as the best possible medium to broadcast the ADLaM initiative to the people who could benefit the most from hearing it.

As Millington put it: “The global impact of this far exceeds anything an ad could ever do.”