The Campaign

With Photoshop already the dominant software for creative professionals in Japan, Adobe faced two key challenges in growing its business. Firstly, to broaden Photoshop’s appeal beyond its traditional fan-base of creative professionals and second to smoothly migrate existing users to a new Creative Cloud subscription model. The ultimate objective was to “democratize” Photoshop without compromising the solution’s reputation for quality. This was to be done by bringing to life the 25th anniversary of Photoshop through social and media buzz. Taking our lead from the sense of celebration around the anniversary, we identified April Fools’ as the best opportunity to amplify buzz around the product and decided to prank the Internet by announcing a startling new addition to the Photoshop product family. The new product tagged "Photoshop REAL" featured seven popular Photoshop tools including Zoom, Lasso, Eraser and Eyedropper in the form of “REAL” tools like an actual magnifying glass, an eraser and a piece of rope, all packed in a professionally designed box. We pre-seeded these toolkits with key online media and flagged the new launch with a dummy press release. At midnight April 1st, we unleashed Facebook/Twitter ads announcing the product launch while users were directed to the Adobe official blog where they were finally let in on the joke. We generated the highest amplification numbers over a one-day period for Adobe Japan, with 1,884 retweets, 973 favorites and 35,761 engagements through the Adobe Japan Twitter account. We also garnered a 52 media articles.

The Brief

The ultimate goal was to create a campaign that would be appealing to both creative professionals and a wider audience with a passion for art and design.

Results

“Photoshop REAL” became the most talked about April Fool’s campaign in Japan with 4,877 mentions across FB/Twitter with 6,573,706 reach, 1,884 retweets, 973 favorites, 35,761 engagements in a single day, the highest ever in Adobe Japan’s social campaign. It also garnered a total of 52 media articles including 23 unique articles. “Photoshop REAL” succeeded in garnering more attention than Google Japan’s “Google Panda, a new search engine,” Red Bull Japan’s “Eye lotion for hay fever” and Lotte’s flash-freezing “Yokuso” ice bath, all launched on April Fools’ Day.

Execution

Success was all in the timing. Every aspect of the project was carefully orchestrated so that select tech and consumer media had their hands on the box by the morning of April Fools’ Day and their stories online within the day. On April 1st, Adobe “Photoshop REAL” was officially announced on the Daily Portal-Z website along with Adobe Photoshop’s Official blog as an April Fools’ Joke. A limited number of the actual kits were also handed out to readers of Daily Portal-Z at Adobe Japan’s office, allowing fans to take photos and share their experiences on social media. The team also backed the initiative with a paid-strategy, ensuring that the announcement reached a widespread audience. The second wave of buzz generated through local top-tier online media channels helped further amplify the conversation.

The Situation

The team identified April Fools’ Day as the perfect opportunity to do something creative and edgy with Photoshop’s 25th anniversary. April 1st presents companies with an opportunity to shine in the spotlight by showing off their creative muscles while presenting the opportunity to connect with a wider audience. With Adobe’s business objective of having Photoshop reach a user-base beyond creative professionals and Photoshop’s nature of helping users realize creative works, April Fools’ Day was the perfect opportunity to reach this new target market while exemplifying Adobe’s creative prowess.

The Strategy

Our strategy was to create a campaign that would be appealing to both creators and consumers with an artistic bent, through announcements, social amplifications and online media influencers. We decided to capitalize on April Fools’ Day, which has been gaining recognition from Japanese companies, as an opportunity to drive buzz and at the same time flex creative muscles. Our research led to the identification of a strong affinity and respect for Photoshop amongst the local creative professional community. Even as we considered a humorous campaign to promote Photoshop in a non-traditional way, we were very aware that campaign had be true to the important aspects of quality and authenticity while still being playful.