VENDORiQ: Adobe Express – Enabling Content Creation at Scale

Why It’s Important

These are the new features of Adobe Express:

• Work seamlessly within Adobe Express with Photoshop, Illustrator, and, from now on, InDesign and Lightroom files. Add motion and sound with video, music, and now one-click Animate All and sound effects.
• Quickly and easily scale creative work with bulk create, resize with expand images, one-click apply brand, on-brand re-color, and rewrite and translate.
• Enable colleagues to create content and stay on brand with controlled templates with enforced locks, brand controls and shared calendars.

The primary goal of Adobe Express is to provide businesses with scalable, easy-to-use tools for content creation that can ensure brand consistency and compliance. These new features are set to broadly impact various departments within organisations, extending content creation beyond marketing to HR, sales, customer service, and more.

Session Highlights

During an analyst group session, Ian Wang, highlighted several core aspects of Adobe Express that currently resonate with enterprise customers:

1. Content creation at scale: Adobe Express enables the creation of various content types, including flyers, banners, videos, and sales presentations, all within a single app. The platform supports the reuse of content across different formats, making it highly efficient for teams to manage their assets.
2. Ease of use: One of Adobe Express’s major value propositions is its user-friendly interface. It incorporates the best of Adobe’s technologies with simplified workflows and presets, making it accessible for non-creatives while still leveraging the power of Adobe’s core design tools.
3. Brand guidelines integration: Express integrates with existing brand guidelines, ensuring all content remains consistent and compliant across departments. This is particularly useful for teams outside of marketing who don’t have direct access to creative teams, enabling them to create professional, on-brand content without bottlenecks.
4. Cross-platform collaboration: The app offers complete feature parity between web and mobile platforms, making collaboration seamless across different teams and devices.
5. Generative AI capabilities: With AI integration, Adobe Express aims to revolutionise content creation by automating repetitive tasks, enabling bulk content creation, and personalising content across multiple languages and channels. This is expected to drastically reduce the time spent on manual editing, especially for high-volume content production needs.
6. Enterprise-grade security: Adobe reiterated its commitment to ensuring that all content created through Express is commercially safe and compliant with enterprise-grade security and privacy standards.

Who’s Impacted?

• IT support teams: They will need to manage the integration of Adobe Express with existing workflows and ensure smooth deployment and usage across the organisation.
• Non-marketing teams: According to Wang, one of the functions with the highest penetration outside of marketing is HR. HR uses Adobe Express extensively for recruitment materials, internal communications, and employee engagement content. This rollout will likely enhance their ability to create and distribute on-brand content quickly.
• Sales enablement teams: Sales teams can now easily create dynamic pitch decks and leave-behinds, integrating video and interactive media. This allows them to deliver more impactful presentations without relying on creative teams.

What’s Next?

• Evaluate the technology: Teams across various departments should assess their current content creation workflows and explore how Adobe Express can streamline these processes, especially for non-creative roles.
• Train key users: Identify users within HR, sales, and customer service departments who will benefit from Adobe Express and provide the necessary training to help them create content that adheres to brand guidelines.
• Integrate with existing systems: IT departments should plan for seamless integration of Adobe Express with other platforms in use, such as CRM or project management tools, to ensure a smooth workflow for content creation and management.

Related IBRS Advisory

• VENDORiQ: Enhancing Creative Workflows – Adobe’s Latest Innovations in Photoshop and Illustrator
• VENDORiQ: Transformative Workflows – Insights on Adobe’s Firefly Video Model Announcement