Cannes Lions

PHOTOSHOP MURDER MYSTERY

EDELMAN, San Francisco / ADOBE / 2015

Awards:

1 Gold Cannes Lions
1 Silver Cannes Lions
Case Film
Case Film
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Overview

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Credits

OVERVIEW

Description

A year after Adobe announced they’d no longer release boxed software and would only release their programs as cloud-based downloads, Photoshop customers were still unhappy.

Our objective: make customers fall back in love with the brand and show them the cloud’s benefits.

Through research, we knew our Facebook community loved to show off their work and had a taste for the gruesome. As Halloween approached, we saw an opportunity to tap the audience’s morbid sensibilities.

Our idea? A murder mystery within a Photoshop file. Fans downloaded the crime scene—a heavily layered Photoshop file—from Creative Cloud. They then co-solved the mystery over the Facebook platform, turning Photoshop into a video game.

The three-day campaign garnered 4.8M impressions, 22k downloads, and positive sentiment went from 15 to 76%. The campaign turned an unruly community of designers into an army of detectives, sparking their imaginations and reigniting their love for Photoshop.

Execution

On day one of the campaign we released the crime scene, a heavily layered Photoshop file available for download via the Creative Cloud. Fans explored its layers for clues—notes from a mistress, a vile of poison, etc. Fans were immediately hooked and started interacting with us and other “detectives” in real-time, sharing clues in the comments, proposing theories, swapping Photoshop tips and tricks. The most diligent users could solve a puzzle that led to a hidden URL, containing a secret Photoshop file.

On day two we released the suspects’ police files, which included their fingerprints and blood types. We capitalized on the Facebook platform, allowing our fans to interrogate the suspects through the comments in real-time. They asked questions—we responded back immediately in character.

With all the clues released, our detectives made their cases and on the third day the mystery was solved by several fans.

Outcome

The campaign turned Adobe’s flagship product, Photoshop, into a video game that immersed fans in a competitive quest testing the limits of their skills.

The campaign resulted in over 4.8 million social and earned media impressions and 22,000 downloads of the game, half of which were from Adobe’s Creative Cloud. The campaign also helped to increase positive brand sentiment from 15 to 76 percent. But the best part was seeing the fan love that came pouring in, asking for another game next year.

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