Client Project:
Adobe, Creative Cloud Express
Challenge
To develop a fresh, breakthrough and long-lasting brand campaign that increases Adobe’s brand CCX awareness, relevance, and engagement by positioning the company as an essential tool for small businesses success.
Research Process
Intense 360-degree research of Adobe’s online design app called Creative Cloud Express, its competitors, and its industry. Critically evaluated Adobe brand, business, marketing and design strategies.
My team asked the question: How can this product help small businesses succeed?
We observed that there is a perception that Adobe products are made for design professionals. We also found that small business owners often do not consider themselves to be creative and they often think that they cannot design marketing materials. However, we observed that business people make creative decisions every day when presenting their products and services.
We researched the daily needs and challenges of small and medium businesses, and then we interviewed over twenty small business owners.
Insight
Small businesses keep up with and even set new standards in digital marketing,
but they believe they’re not a creative thinker or doer.
Idea
The creativity is already there; this audience is already expressing themselves and their businesses in their own unique way.
They just don’t realize it. We need to help them by adding an element of confidence.
By leveraging a user-friendly platform of CCX and letting the audience know that Adobe is not only for the professionals.
Activation
As you see from the marketing plan in the approach above, our team divided the marketing activation into three parts.
For the campaign creative, we thought “showing” would be a great way to “tell.” My team and I used Creative Cloud Express to create campaign materials showcasing how easy it is to use this app with no design experience and highlighting the low barrier of entry.
Throughout our research and interviews, we also discovered that small and medium-sized business owners value their community network. We recommended that Adobe create an independent site for small business owners. This would gain traction with owners who would otherwise not know of Adobe and who would appreciate an easy, free, online marketing resource. Further, we recommended exciting and meaningful one-on-one events where Adobe experts can answer small to complex questions. This would make Adobe more approachable and provide a positive first impression for new Adobe users. We believe that these activations would be mutually beneficial to Adobe and business owners.
