Have you ever wondered, what if true love had face recognition? Or what if our stoves had eco-mode, and turned off when food was ready? Well, Toshiba consumers have, and they’ve made short videos of their ideas and posted them to AskWhatIf.ca, as part of a new back-to-school campaign and contest for the brand’s notebook computers.

Print and video ads, with creative and media handled by Toronto-based Zig, leverage the laptops’ unique features like a face recognition passkey, a power-conserving eco-mode and a hard-drive impact sensor that detects falls, for instance.

Video ads are appearing in Cineplex theatres, while online pre-roll ads are on sites like Gorilla Nation, Tremor Media and Sympatico MSN networks, as well as Break.com. Meanwhile, print ads appear in Famous and Famous Quebec magazines, as well as OOH posters in Zoom’s network and in malls on Pattison posters.

All the messaging drives consumers to the microsite, where the ‘What if’ videos are posted. ‘There are a few traditional elements, but a lot of it is where our demographic is going to be,’ Zig ECD Martin Beauvais tells MiC, about the student demo who spend their summers going to movies and surfing the web. The campaign was developed so that it can be used for both the back to school and holiday seasons, explains Beauvais.

Online entries – like that of Lonely Girl, who wishes true love had face recognition – vie for a chance to win a trip to Japan, as well as a paid 2010 internship at Toshiba. Other prizes for the campaign that runs through Aug. 30 include weekly computers, DVD players and game consoles.