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Keeping teams on top of their game with Adobe’s Creative Skills Report
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How we uncovered the most essential creative skills with Adobe.
Our landmark survey of more than 60 of the world’s most respected creative companies provides an overview of the creative industry’s most needed and in-demand skills. Created in partnership with Adobe Digital Media Enterprise, The Creative Skills Report combines our survey data and interviews to offer creative leaders an insight into how they should be thinking about the skills in their team.
It’s Nice That created a cross-channel campaign to promote downloads of the report, including a series of four articles and targeted social posts directed towards senior decision-makers at enterprise-level brands and agencies.
Adobe asked It’s Nice That to develop a campaign that spoke to current and future senior decision-makers in the creative industry. With emerging technologies and ever-changing visual trends, the skills this audience needs to invest in are constantly in flux. This makes it hard for decision-makers to know which skills are the most vital for their teams. We decided to find out on their behalf and create a report to help them make more informed decisions.
“We landed on the idea of a survey and report as we felt the format could provide great insight and help for this audience.”
Ali Hanson, creative at It’s Nice That
“Our target audience’s needs guided our creative thinking from the outset of this project” says Ali Hanson, creative at It’s Nice That. “We landed on the idea of a survey and report as we felt the format could provide great insight and help for this audience.” With connections across the most respected and forward-thinking agencies across the UK, we were in a unique position to uncover insights into creative skill sets and to deliver research that made an impact.
After drawing up a list of creatives from more than 60 of the most respected agencies, brands and studios to survey, we designed a questionnaire covering five key areas for creative managers.
We started by exploring which skills are the most foundational for a creative career and then asked which ones are in highest demand today. Next, we questioned respondents about which emerging technologies are the most essential in a creative’s toolbox, before asking them how managers should approach learning itself. Our survey ended with a deep dive into the specialist-versus-generalist debate, enquiring how to balance a creative skillset.
As the results came in, we worked with a data analyst to uncover the most interesting and informative insights. For example, we found that creatives see a clear link between upskilling and personal success: to advance their careers, 53% felt that future digital skills are the way to go. They are also widely in agreement when it comes to the specialising versus generalising debate. A huge majority (75%) believe it is best to couple deep expertise in one skill with a broad knowledge base in several others.
To bring our findings to life with an engaging visual story, we worked with illustrator Camilo Huinca. His playful approach to characters and their interaction with technology made him a great fit for the project. “We worked closely with Camilo to decide which insights to bring to life, plus how to develop the ideas and marry them to the design,” says Ali. “It was a great collaboration.”
To add depth to the data and another layer to our findings, we discussed the results with some of the most influential names working in the creative industry today, from James Hurst, global creative director at Pinterest, to Marina Willer, Pentagram partner. Their opinions were peppered throughout the report and in four supporting articles designed to drive downloads.
Our supporting social campaign also helped promote the report, targeted at key creative decision-makers across the UK and Nordics. We published across Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to drive awareness of the online articles as well as direct report downloads.
- 1.4 million total reach across It’s Nice That channels
- A hyper-targeted social media campaign directed at the UK and Nordics, with a specific focus on enterprise level senior creatives
- Over 2,000 report downloads from creative leaders within the industry, exceeding targets by 150%
It was fantastic to see such great engagement on this report. It has opened our eyes to how we could continue to develop industry insights going forwards and we're delighted that it added real value to people operating within the creative industry.
“Working on The Creative Skills Report has been a really insightful experience for our audience, and for us too,” says Lucy Bourton, deputy editor at It’s Nice That. “It’s a rare opportunity for us to directly survey our audience in this way, and was hugely beneficial.”