Adobe Photoshop Express: Proud of Us Series

Objective

Illuminate the stories and voices of the LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month, transcending the typical brand-centric approach in order to drive meaningful engagements and increase brand love.

Challenge

Every brand and their mother runs a Pride Month campaign. How can Photoshop Express, a mobile editing app for Gen Z content creators, uplift the wide range of voices and emotions of the LGBTQ+ community during this time, instead of speaking for them or making it about the brand?

Insight

Pride Month is a major social justice moment where the LGBTQ+ community oftentimes reflects on their own unique journeys of how they got to where they are today, stirring up a wide range of emotions – reflection, empowerment, and even humor.

Idea

Enter ‘Proud Of Us’ – a series where five creators shared their journey and the things they’re proud of. Instead of sharing standalone photos (like a lot of videos within this social trend of sharing one’s Pride journey), they created photo collages in Photoshop Express to further their storytelling. Each creator was given the creative freedom to share their journey in a way that was most authentic to them. This led to a range of executions. The final videos were uplifting, heartfelt, and even funny. We were gagged by @bittnia’s storytelling approach which resulted in a hilarious video where she shares her Pride Journey via rating every outfit she’s worn to NYC Pride over the years.

Results

Our community loved that we tapped into the full spectrum of emotions to celebrate Pride, with comments like “this is so real i love this” and “Absolutely SLAYED the last one loved it.” According to @sorry.im.robyn, Nia’s video earned the high honor of being the “the one ad y’all got me to fully watch…” Despite the small channel following, the campaign garnered over 2.7M views, 72.9K interactions, and an ER of 2.63% which was 57% above the Instagram Platform Benchmark of 1.67%.