@ADOBEUK

The question on everyone’s lips was whether smaller production budgets make for more original content. Day 3 of #CreativeWeekUK saw us discuss how smaller budgets have become a natural by-product of the contracting broadcast and cinematography markets, and the implications that has had on creativity and quality standards.

We were joined by three great panelists for our live debate at the start of the day. Dan Jones (Maverick TV), Marc Goodchild (ex BBC) and Justin Weyers (Made Visual Studios) chatted about everything from independent productions and YouTube testing, right through to how the skills of hungry graduates can be best used in industry and what the future of video production has in store.

As always, the #CreativeWeekUK Twitter community played a huge part in the debate, with contributions including whether new technologies and production tools raise standards or just client expectations. And they also had their say in our daily poll with 90% of people agreeing that smaller budgets do make for more original content. What can we say…get creating!

We also welcomed Jason Levine over from the US who spent some time showing off the latest video tools Adobe has to offer including the new, streamlined Premiere Pro interface.

If you want to catch up on any of this week’s shows, then be sure to visit our website. Plus there’s still time to get involved in the final couple of days of #CreativeWeekUK by taking part in our competition. We’d love to hear from you!

Read on for our Storify of day two at #CreativeWeekUK

There’s a high correlation between great customer experience and three key elements of loyal behaviour: willingness to buy more, reluctance to switch, and likelihood to recommend. Given today’s consumers interact with brands across many different channels and devices, marketers are left with a number of challenges – which channels are most relevant to their brand, how do they manage multiple channels and how do they evaluate the success and business impact of their activities?

Check out our recent webinar with Forrester and Pippa Barron, Renault UK’s Online Development and Publishing Manager. Here they discuss best practices to increase engagement, relevancy and personalisation and put customers in the driving seat.

Read on to see how we’re working with Pippa and her team to create a unique experience for Renault’s customers:

1. Understand what your customers want: Customers increasingly expect to conduct all their vehicle research online, including pricing, product, colours, and options, before they even go into a dealership. We’ve worked with Renault to integrate engaging media across its site. Adobe Scene7 displays images, shows video, and provides other content that allows visitors to explore available models and vehicle features for a better digital experience.
2. Use enhanced images: By providing 360-degree views of each vehicle the customer can even see inside the car before going to the dealer.
3. Offer personalised options: Using the colour-rendering option Renault customers can see swatches of all available colours and zoom in to really get a feel of what their car will look like in the colour option that they’ve chosen. This level of personalisation lets customers get a good idea of what colour car they want before they ever step into a dealership.
4. Provide engaging hot spot content: Renault used Adobe Scene7 to implement engaging hot-spot content (both text and video) where specific features and functionality are described and demonstrated in detail. This enables Renault to showcase its products and to zoom in to give the customer a great experience about what the product is really like. 
5. Offer relevant product videos: Adobe Scene7 also enabled Renault to add four to six product videos per car showing key features and functionalities in detail. These included test drives or TV commercials that highlight the performance attributes of different models, as well as some information about the car that might move the viewer closer to a purchase decision.
6. Provide up-to-date brochures and product price guides: Renault maintains a vast library of e-brochures and price lists for all its models and these are updated weekly using our technology. It also has a wide selection of supporting brochures about paint trim selections, financing options, and features like satellite navigation to provide the most up-to-date content for its customers.
7. Evolve to meet customer expectations: Renault’s looking to evolve in ways that meet customer expectations in terms of mobile and desktop functionality. It has a mobile-optimised site that is compatible with all smartphones, and it will soon offer the 360-degree spin and zooming functions as well as video.

For more information on how to personalise the brand experience, please click here.

Article by Anke Schnedler, marketing manager, Adobe Systems

According to Gartner Group more than 35 per cent of the top 5,000 global companies will “regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets in 2012,” because of lack of information, processes, and tools. Indeed, for many years managers have been telling employees that they should ‘work smarter, not harder’ when seeking improvements in productivity. This is all very well but for design professionals and engineers in the manufacturing industry, collaborating and exchanging plans with colleagues, suppliers, partners and agencies is part and parcel of the job. Having so many people involved in any one project means document review cycles can add days — even months — to project timelines, impacting productivity and the bottom line.

As a result, it’s more important than ever that engineers embrace smart working principles and equip themselves with document collaboration tools that not only increase efficiency through the review process, but enable them to protect company information, even when documents travel outside of the document management system and corporate firewall.
Gone are the days when designs are hand drawn and sent by stagecoach or post for review. Advances in software packages have automated paper-based processes and remote working has revolutionised the way that manufacturers work with dispersed project teams, remote suppliers, offshore production facilities and customers worldwide.

Given the impact of the recession on the UK manufacturing industry, now more than ever, manufacturers need to have a tight end- to-end document management process and collaboration tools to bring products to market quickly. Adobe is committed to helping manufacturers to connect, interact, and engage in powerful new ways. For example, Acrobat X Pro allows organisations to not only combine files from multiple applications which streamlines the design review processes, but also includes features that allow designers to add dimensions as well as rotate, zoom, cross-section, measure, and create 3D markups. The ability to review documents in real-time allows large teams to interact and interrogate rich 2D drawings and 3D designs. Being able to compare plans with previous versions ultimately helps organisations reduce costs, drive innovation, minimise design cycles and improve product quality — while bringing products to market faster than ever.

Another key challenge for manufacturers is how to maintain the integrity of networked systems whilst mitigating the risk of exposing critical data in an environment where the threat landscape is constantly changing. Indeed, manufacturers across the globe (Boeing, Allgaier Automotive, Electrolux, and Samsung) rely on products like Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader software. By using PDF, manufacturers can protect and manage sensitive information through document controls and security rules so only those with permission can access documents and control who opens, views, prints, copies, and modifies files — both inside and outside the firewall.

The old adage time is money is now more relevant than ever before. Modern day manufacturers need to embrace technology if they are to achieve operational efficiency. To see how Adobe and its partners can help manufacturers prepare, protect, and deliver professional PDF communications click here.

With less than two weeks to go until the UK’s first ever Creative Week, we’re excited to announce some of the exciting speakers and contributors we’ve got lined up for first two days.

On Monday 9^th July, we’ll be taking a look at the Creative Industry as a whole, and will include a debate on how creativity can help drive the UK out of recession as well as show and tell sessions with industry experts. Taking part on Monday will be;

-          Brendan Dawes a UK-based, MoMA exhibited is an artist and designer (live debate)

-          Joel Gethin Lewis, co- Director of experiential design agency Hellicar & Lewis (live debate)

-          Iconic British designer Wayne Hemingway (show and tell)

-          Chris Thompson, Head of Business Development at Ravensbourne College (show and tell)

-          Marc Lewis, pioneer of London’s new school dedicated to the art of advertising School of Communication Arts (show and tell)

-          Rufus Deuchler, Sr. Worldwide Design Evangelist at Adobe Systems (product demos and tips and tricks)

On Tuesday 10^th July, we’ll be focussing on the Design & Publishing industry and are delighted that the following speakers will be joining us on the day;

-          Jeremy Leslie, Creative Director at magCulture and publishing industry commentator

-          Publishing analyst and cultural commentator Danuta Kean

-          Future Publishing’s digital Editor-in-Chief Mike Goldsmith

-          Artist & Illustrator Pete Fowler (show and tell)

-          Three directors from creative agency Studio Output, Dan Moore, Rob Coke and Ian Hambleton (show and tell)

-          Adobe Certified Expert Tony Harmer (how to session)

-          Rupert Knowles, Adobe UK’s Design Product Manager (product demos and tips and tricks)

-          And Rufus Deuchler, Sr. Worldwide Design Evangelist at Adobe Systems will again be joining us (product demos and tips and tricks)

For more details on the event and to sign up for updates, visit the Creative Week website at www.adobecreate.co.uk/creativeweek.

Stay tuned for more updates!