DECODED: Journey through JAY-Z’s Life and Art with Bing and Silverlight
On November 16th, fans of Hip Hop Artist JAY-Z will be able to explore the inspiration behind his music and art when the life-in-lyrics book, DECODED is published. But if that’s too long to wait, they can access all the pages of DECODED exclusively, today, on Bing, the decision engine from Microsoft. Fans can compile JAY-Z’s book via a multi-platform search experience and interactive game, built on Silverlight. For the first time, JAY-Z gives fans a first ever look behind the lyrics of many of his most popular and provocative raps and reveals the sources of inspiration that so powerfully shaped his life and art. The Silverlight based journey provides a revealing look into JAY-Z’s life from his childhood in Brooklyn's Marcy Projects to his troubled teen years to becoming a hip-hop icon.
Over three hundred pages of DECODED will be scattered and hidden within virtual locations on Bing Maps and at the locations relevant to content on the page, with clues being distributed from New York to London to Miami. Players are tasked with searching Bing and Bing Maps to find the physical pages of the book using clues posted daily from JAY-Z’s own Facebook and Twitter profiles. The Silverlight based quest supports a rich and seamless experience for players to chase down clues zooming along streets and around neighborhoods, while Bing Maps birds-eye view brings imagery of JAY-Z’s experience to life. Retrieving correct pages requires players to dive deep into unexpected objects such as pool tables and bronze plagues and other surfaces significant to JAY-Z, as the physical pages are found in places and on objects that have never before been used as advertising.
At the end of a month solving clues and collecting pages, the online community of players will come together, to compile the book in a page-turning Silverlight experience. Two hundred players will win a variety of prizes and one lucky player will win a trip to see JAY-Z and Coldplay live in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve. Be part of this bold new chapter at www.bing.com/jayz