Adobe wanted to accelerate its growth in Russia, the fastest growing market in Europe,

in which interest and demand for Adobe products is very high. Their goal was to accelerate growth from 30% year-on-year until the end of 2023.

The challenge to overcome was that Russians know and like Adobe. But don’t buy genuine Adobe products. The vast majority of Russian audiences use non-gen software due to attainability and costs.

We needed to convince upcoming Russian Creatives - with talent to show and a story to tell - to buy genuine Adobe Creative Cloud.

We had three goals:

- Create an emotional connection with ‘Creative Climbers’ and ‘Social Influencers’.

- Give them a new reason to switch to Adobe Creative Cloud.

- Make them a low-barrier-to-entry invitation and offer.

Russian creatives have a global outlook but are poorly represented on the world stage. They want to feel heard and seen.

Using this tension, we developed a campaign in which we gave Russian creatives the world stage they deserve. Creativity has the power to help us reimagine our past and present to create a brighter future.

Upcoming creatives were asked to re-imagine the famous Russian poem written by Pushkin that every Russian grows up with: Lukomorye. Each chapter of the story was re-imagined by a different creative, illustrating it in their signature styles using Adobe Creative Cloud.

This way, Russian Customers could see the full potential of what Adobe CC has to offer and how the right tools can enable them to use their creativity to re-imagine an iconic topic. We gave some of the most promising Russian creatives a local, but also the global stage they deserve.

The challenge to overcome was that Russians know and like Adobe. But don’t buy genuine Adobe products. The vast majority of Russian audiences use non-gen software due to attainability and costs.

We needed to convince upcoming Russian Creatives - with talent to show and a story to tell - to buy genuine Adobe Creative Cloud.

We showed Russian creatives that Adobe understands their local market and what inspires and drives them to be creative, which was based on the insight that Russian creatives have a global outlook. But they are poorly represented on the world stage. They want to feel heard, seen and understood. Paired with an iconic Russian theme, we knew this would hit home for them.

The relevance of our social platforms -Behance and Instagram- is to give the Russian creatives the exposure they deserve and to tell their stories, while inspiring others to follow in their footsteps.

GLOBAL OVERVIEW

The scope of the campaign included a rich media mix at different stages and levels of the campaign. From invitation, to activation, to roll-out, Adobe managed to capture the attention of Russian creatives and make sure to display the work in a way that felt genuine to Adobe and the artistic integrity of the artists.

Paid media (display, social, banners)

PR

Influencer activation

ACTIVATION/COMPETITION

The community activation - the central part of the activation - happened entirely on Instagram and Behance, which is Adobe’s portfolio platform. Candidates to represent the Russian creative community could enter through the hashtag #openyourlukomorye (in Russian) on both platforms. Both platforms are very visual-first and offer the opportunity to give a little more of an explanation about the work and the creative thinking behind it. A renowned judges panel reviewed the work at the OFFF festival, where the winning work was then also displayed.

The incentive for creatives to participate was clear: exposure and unlimited access to everything Adobe has to offer. They were promised local and global exposure, the opportunity to participate in an artists’ residence and were offered a one-year free trial of Creative Cloud.

The campaign was implemented in close collaboration with the selected Russian creatives. 10 creatives - one for each chapter of Lukomorye - were picked to represent the local creative community, using Adobe’s global platform. The fact that the artists had full creative liberty, was absolutely imperative to Adobe. Furthermore, it was of vital importance to them to include both renowned and upcoming creatives. That is what creativity for all - Adobe’s global mission - is all about, and how we made it relevant within this specific market.

INVITATION

> Behance

> Instagram (Adobe account)

> Instagram of Adobe

> Adobe website

The local approach - based on a local insight and translated to an extremely relevant topic in Russian culture - paid off for Adobe. The campaign stood out to Russian consumers due to its creative value and locality. This clearly shows in engagement and awareness numbers:

- Impressions: 369M

- Contest submissions: 539 submissions

- Clicks: 708k

- Visits to campaign page: 460k

- Click-to-visit: 64%

- Cost-per-visit: $0.82

- Engaged visits: 51k

Furthermore, we saw a +30% lift in trial sign-ups, which exceeds all benchmarks. But most importantly, we saw a +10% lift in gross new subscribers during the time of the campaign, from which a second flight will be launched in the nearby future. It is safe to say that our localized approach made Adobe even more relevant for the Russian creative community, to the extent where many non(-genuine) users made the switch to Adobe Creative Cloud.