As the first choice of creative professionals, Adobe is the industry leader for design software solutions. But with a saturated market they needed to expand their education audience and move beyond design students. So they tasked Traction with introducing their Creative Suite to a whole new audience.
Reaching these new non-design students is no easy task. We knew they were aware of Adobe or at least Photoshop—it had entered the cultural vernacular as a verb associated with internet fakery. So we decided to engage them with an experience that was culturally relevant and expose them to the possibilities of the Adobe Creative Suite.
Across social and owned channels we created a weekly interactive game called "Real or Fake?” which challenged students to determine which of five images were originals or had been doctored. Along with tutorials on how we faked the images, we showcased detailed Creative Suite info to educate our audience and a compelling 80% student discount to hook them.
Over half of visitors played the game. Of those who played, 10% shared, 6% clicked to buy, and over 40% played the game again. The program had 138% more total reach and 127% more organic reach than the averages prior to the program that year. We also saw that our lifetime viral reach and lifetime engaged users were 702% and 737% more than our respective averages.
The game won numerous awards including Silver Addy for Best Social Media campaign and was accepted into Facebook Studio, a gallery of outstanding social creative ideas from around the world. The “Real or Fake?” program became an annual global mainstay for Adobe Education with four consecutive years of updated releases. It has since evolved further and elements of it are still being utilized by Adobe today.
