We wanted to engage WeTransfer’s global community to build an understanding of how the uncertainty and doubt plaguing our world impacted creativity.

Audience: The global creative community

Challenge: Engage audiences without the intimacy of in person events or a physical report

Objectives: Build awareness of WeTransfer’s deep connection to creative professionals and drive engagement

In our third annual Ideas Report, published in early December, we took the pulse of our community. Out of 35,000 responses from 183 countries, we sought to understand how creative people generated and developed ideas in a highly unusual year, all while reckoning with a global pandemic. It was a year of massive contrasts. The results were striking. While many respondents reported having more creative ideas than ever before, intense doubt and a toll on mental health was a prevailing theme for others.

For the Watch section, we interviewed five industry leaders who shared their advice for dealing with creative blocks, and we asked how they harnessed doubt in a game-changing year. The talks were candid, honest, and intimate. (Getting that type of intimacy from established people was refreshing.)

The inspiration for this section was real-life cinema. We wanted to make it feel like something you would lean back to watch and enjoy. We designed the page to reflect the speakers’ candidness and openness, using big, bold typography to emphasize the five personal mantras.

Lastly, we decided to make a game to present the survey questions as an interactive journey and wandering experience.

To start, we asked visitors how the pandemic affected them on a professional and personal level. As they advanced through five stages, their “aura” formed a shareable summary, or mood spectrum, of their past year.

We wanted to engage WeTransfer’s global community to build an understanding of how the uncertainty and doubt plaguing our world impacted creativity.

• Placement

The Campaign delivered 128MM+ imp, engaged thought leaders, drove 95% positive sentiment and 233K site sessions via Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, the MarketingBrew, WeTransfer Wallpapers, and blog.

• Scale

We had over 35,000 responses to our questions from many countries around the world.

• Brand relevance

Empathizing with the good, bad, and messy parts of ideas has been a part WeTransfer since day one. We moved beyond just listening to creatives with the Ideas Report to a conversation with our global audience about ideas and the current creative climate.

• Touch points

From the design, we wanted this year’s report to have multiple entry points, allowing people to take in the information in different ways. Because a dense report isn’t for everyone, we landed on three ways in––Read, Watch, and Play.

• Materials, style elements, design choices

That tension in emotions is emphasized in many parts of the report, beginning with the colour scheme, black and white with a hint of colour. We went for big and bold look and feel, and systems of decision trees, surveys, and quizzes inspired the overall design.

• Methods and process

In the Read section, we showed five key findings as cards that readers could open and close, like flipping through a report page. We were inspired by economy-focused newspapers such as the Financial Times. It was important to have the information and data feel unencumbered, so referencing a brutalist approach to design felt appropriate.

For the Watch section, we interviewed five industry leaders who shared their advice for dealing with creative blocks, we asked how they harnessed doubt in a game-changing year. The talks were candid, honest, and intimate.

The Campaign delivered 128MM+ imp, engaged thought leaders, drove 95% positive sentiment and 233K site sessions via Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, the MarketingBrew, WeTransfer Wallpapers, and blog.

We had over 35,000 responses to our questions from many countries around the world.