WeTransfer launched its latest research initiative, the Emerging Creative Hubs Index, for the first time last year. The Index shines a light on where creative progress is happening and calls out the top 10 emerging creative epicenters in the United States. WeTransfer teamed up with strategic insight and brand studio, TRIPTK, to dive deep into a wide range of data sets, including anonymous WeTransfer user data, to uncover the stories hiding in plain sight. The list is packed with under-the-radar locales, celebrating the people and places that challenge conventional wisdom about who, where, and how creativity strikes. Combining this rigorous research and interactive storytelling, WeTransfer is at the forefront of creative culture and bringing attention to emerging creative hotspots around the world. Through the launch of the Index, WeTransfer created a Creatives Hub Grant program, giving away 100k to nonprofits helping to further the creative community within the top 10.

WeTransfer worked with New York-based agency TRIPTK to develop the index framework for which the report would be based on, dove into WeTransfer’s data to determine where people are transferring their files, and designed the landing page for how WeTransfer told these stories. WeTransfer’s internal studio team developed the creative for the campaign touchpoints, showcasing the interactive storytelling through engaging campaign assets.

For the creative, WeTransfer and TRIPTK were inspired by city maps - the colour-ways, bold type, and informational design influenced the editorial and campaign identity of the project. Combining with WeTransfer’s own visual brand language and this inspiration of city maps from all around the United States, the campaign looked uniquely WeTransfer.

Once we developed our short list of cities where the most files are transferred, we developed a research index that combined qualitative and quantitative data to tell the stories behind the creative in these 10 cities. The research phase took about three months and the creative and editorial execution took another three months to complete. Once we had a beautiful microsite of our research, storytelling, and grant program information, we launched via our social media (paid and organic), email newsletters, and through our community partners in the emerging ten cities.

For the creative, WeTransfer and TRIPTK were inspired by city maps - the colour-ways, bold type, and informational design influenced the editorial and campaign identity of the project. Combining with WeTransfer’s own visual brand language and this inspiration of city maps from all around the United States, the campaign looked uniquely WeTransfer.

In the US, certain cities are prized as being the cities that creative thrives - think New York and Los Angeles. We wanted to highlight the cities and creatives in the places outside of the typical giant cities to show that good work and supportive communities exist in other areas of the United States. Highlighting these smaller cities was received extremely well by the residents of those cities – the local pride was big when we launched the campaign and we saw that most of the shares on social media were through the residents of these smaller cities.