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Tag: adobe

  • Adobe Creative Cloud Express just launched, and it’s free for iPhone

    Adobe Creative Cloud Express just launched, and it’s free for iPhone

    Adobe has announced the launch of Creative Cloud Express as the newest member of its Creative Cloud Suite, and some of its enticing features will also be made available for iPhone and iPad, as well as accessible from any browser.

    Creative Cloud Express appears to come as a direct competitor to Canva, and aims to provide digital graphic design creators with the best canvas and tools to do their job. This includes thousands of Adobe templates, fonts, and stock images to choose from, with the ability to create presentations, slideshows, logos, banners, and all other kinds of visual content right from your browser.

    The company made the announcement today through a press release:

    Adobe today launched Creative Cloud Express, a unified task-based, web and mobile product that makes it easy to create and share beautiful rich multimedia content – from social media posts and stories to invitations to marketing materials like logos, flyers, and banners. Creative Cloud Express enables drag-and-drop content creation, empowering every user to express their creativity with just a few clicks.

    What’s more, users will be able to easily share their work, or specific elements of it, with other colleagues via the Creative Cloud Libraries, without having to export anything outside of the platform first.

    Here is a rundown of the range of features that will be available on Creative Cloud Express, as published by Adobe:

    • Simple drag-and-drop functions to quickly customize thousands of beautiful templates.
    • 20,000 premium Adobe fonts and 175 million royalty-free licensed Adobe Stock images.
    • Advanced search and discover capabilities, powered by the Adobe Stock Marketplace.
    • “Quick Actions” powered by Adobe Sensei to remove background features from photos, trim and merge videos, turn videos into GIFs, and convert/export PDFs in a few clicks.
    • Shared Templates and Shared Brands to ensure brand consistency across teams.
    • Seamlessly manage social media publishing workflows with ContentCal features, once integrated with Adobe.
    • Integration with Creative Cloud Libraries.

    While the full feature load of Creative Cloud Express is evidently most efficiently used on a computer with a screen, much of its content is also already available in Apple’s iOS App Store for iPhone and iPad, under the name Creative Cloud Express: Design. Despite barely being up for 24 hours, the app has already garnered a full five-star rating from nearly two hundred thousand users.

    While both the app and browser version are completely free, Adobe also offers a Creative Cloud Express premium plan, which brings a bunch of extra features to users for $9.99 per month.

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  • Richemont joins Alibaba’s IP alliance on brand protection

    Richemont joins Alibaba’s IP alliance on brand protection

    Global luxury group Richemont has joined the Alibaba Anti-Counterfeiting Alliance, a partnership between the e-commerce giant and brands that works to protect intellectual property rights on Alibaba’s platforms. Geneva, Switzerland-based Richemont is now among the 115 members from 16 countries and regions that are a part of the IP alliance, as well as the latest from the luxury sector to partner with the e-commerce giant on brand protection. Richemont said it would share its technology, expertise and other information to support the Alliance’s efforts.

    Richemont owns 17 luxury brands, including Cartier, Montblanc, Piaget, Van Cleef & Arpels, Watchfinder & Co and Chloe, in addition to Yoox Net-A-Porter Group, the online retail platform. YNAP runs four different websites — Net-A-Porter, Mr Porter, lifestyle-goods destination YOOX and affordable-fashion seller The Outnet — as well as online flagship stores for leading fashion brands, such as Armani, Moncler and Valentino.

    The announcement comes a month after Alibaba and YNAP partnered to bring the site’s high-end goods to Chinese consumers. A joint venture between Alibaba and YNAP will launch a mobile app for the Net-A-Porter platform and menswear site Mr Porter, in addition to opening flagship stores for Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter on Tmall Luxury Pavilion, a channel that connects premier brands with China’s digital-first consumers.

    Richemont, along with New Balance, General Motors and McDonald’s, were the latest global brands to join the AACA. The alliance’s membership has more than tripled from the original 30 founding brands at its launch last year, and now includes  names, such as Bose, Canada Goose, Honda, Samsung, Mars, Adobe, Danone, Hasbro and L’Oreal, in 12 industry categories. They work with Alibaba in six key areas — proactive online monitoring and protection, a product test-buy program, offline investigations and enforcement actions, industry-law enforcement workshops, litigation tactics and public awareness campaigns — in the fight against IP infringement.

    In September last year, the AACA established an advisory board so that brands could provide feedback to Alibaba in areas related to IP enforcement. Alibaba has since upgraded its Intellectual Property Protection Portal as well, delivering faster navigation and a better user experience on the site, where rights holders report suspected infringing listing and share information with Alibaba. In addition, Alibaba’s Good Faith program, which is open to brands with a track record of accurate notice and takedown filings, has streamlined the reporting process.

    The IP alliance does not restrict its brand-protection efforts to the online space. Alibaba and its brand partners also work to find and eliminate fakes at their source. In the luxury sector, Alibaba and Louis Vuitton – one of the first members of AACA – conducted an offline investigation that resulted in the seizure in May of approximately RMB 100 million ($14.4 million) worth of counterfeit goods.

    “The protection of intellectual property rights requires all stakeholders to work closely together and share their expertise. The AACA will continue its efforts to establish industry best practices for IP protection by creating effective collaboration among brands, platforms and law enforcement,” said Michael Yao, Alibaba’s senior VP and head of Brand Protection and Cooperation.

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  • More online super sales for Asia online market

    More online super sales for Asia online market

    While the US formulated online super sales, such as this week’s Black Friday, Asia has adopted the concept with a vengeance.

    In fact, China has increasingly been exporting Alibaba’s Singles Day (11.11) event, which this month racked up a massive US$35 billion in sales. November is the favoured month for this new consumer mania, offering the Singles Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

    Both Black Friday and Cyber Monday themselves have been catching on in the Asia Pacific, growing by 29 per cent last year, according to global payments company WorldPay.

    It says that despite forking out $17.8 billion on Singles Day last year, Chinese consumers still went hunting Black Friday bargains, with overall spending on the day up by 37 per cent from the previous year. In Hong Kong, the rate of growth was 32 per cent, and in Singapore 21 per cent.

    While retailers are among the biggest Black Friday winners, new WorldPay data suggests this year could also be a great opportunity for savvy APAC businesses in the travel and digital sectors. In Hong Kong, spending with travel and airlines saw a 30 per cent surge last year, with Singapore figures up 20 per cent as travellers jumped online to search for flight and hotel deals.

    Not just retailers

    Shoppers are also increasingly seeking out bargains for digital content such as subscriptions, e-books and on-demand box sets. Black Friday spending in this sector last year grew 62 per cent in Hong Kong and 14 per cent in Singapore.

    Not just retailers can benefit from Black Friday, but also a range of e-commerce businesses, says WorldPay Asia Pacific GM Phil Pomford.

    “While Black Friday and Cyber Monday have typically been the realm of retailers, a more diverse range of businesses are now recognising they can also take can take advantage of this special online opportunity.

    Shoppers during this time are highly engaged, proactive and looking for a wide range of online deals, so the potential to reach new customers and strengthen brand loyalty is huge, regardless of sector.

    “E-commerce businesses should set themselves up for success by ensuring their websites are prepared for heavy traffic, and offer simple payment options to drive shopping-cart conversions. They might also consider following the example of Amazon and kickstart Black Friday deals a week early.”

    Black Friday online sales surpassed $3 billion last year and are expected to rise this week, says Adobe Digital Insights, as buyers seek to avoid long queues and lost hours in retail stores.

    In Southeast Asia, Google searches for “Black Friday” have surged over the past five years, and 12 months ago major offline/online retailers like Robinsons, Sephora and Zalora offered generous discounts for the event.

    “Many industries rely on this event to make up a large portion of their fourth-quarter sales, in particular toys and games,” says Euromonitor International senior toys and games analyst Matthew Hudak.

    ‘Sure to jump on’

    Digital campaign company RTB House says Black Friday last year attracted 106 per cent more people to online stores, with 204 per cent more transactions.

    “We anticipate conversion rates surging this time,” says RTB House Southeast Asia country director Chandra Kuncara. “Customers who missed out on Singles Day will be sure to jump on this event.”

    He says personalised retargeting is an important selling tool during Black Friday. With AI technology and deep-learning algorithms, marketers can highlight most-desired products for each individual customer.

    More purchases mean more packages being shipped, and international courier service FedEx is again expecting to handle a record number of packages over the peak holiday shopping period, which starts on Monday and runs to December 24. This year it is expecting 380 to 400 million packages.

    The growth of cross-border e-commerce is turning the peak shipping season into a global phenomenon, says FedEx. For instance, 37 per cent of Singles Day purchases in China last year were from international brands or merchants. Cross-border shopping is expected to make up 20 per cent of e-commerce sales by 2022, led by Asia Pacific.

    “While an online purchase takes just a few clicks, logistics providers are working hard behind the scenes powering every moment,” says FedEx Express AsiaPacific president Karen Reddington. “Our business is the backbone of the e-commerce market.”

    Meanwhile, while shoppers scramble for Black Friday bargains this week, outdoor retailer REI is closing its 154 US stores for the third consecutive year, offering its nearly 12,000 employees a paid holiday. It is truly going against the tide by also putting a hold on online orders.

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  • Adobe designs new video measurement model

    Adobe designs new video measurement model

    Adobe has launched a new video analytics offering that promises to provide marketers with new and improved measurement for both content and ads.

    “As video measurement grows increasingly important for marketers to drive major decisions, the significance of these metrics comes into focus daily,” said Chris Wareham, the senior director of product management at Adobe in a blog entry.

    “The ability to obtain data such as time spent, ad performance, device, geography, bounce rates, impressions, and more is now a crucial piece of the pie.”

    New video measurement model

    A key update would be the measuring of video engagement with substantially greater granularity than in the past. This is done by sending “heartbeats” packets every 10 seconds during a video playback or during a live event.

    On top of the initial start server call that Adobe Analytics receives whenever a video is played, a new processing layer will now aggregate all heartbeats until the viewer ends the session – either by completing the video, closing the browser, or switching to a new video. This data is then transmitted as part of a final server call to complete the playback data set.

    “The 10-second heartbeat measurement eliminates the blind spot and offers a much more thorough view of how content is being consumed,” explained Wareham. “By analyzing video streams, rather than just starts and stops, brands can gain a more complete picture of how content is being consumed.”

    A move away from simple monitoring milestones that is based solely on server calls means that stream can not only provide standardization across basic video performance metrics, but is also able to provide deeper insights into media consumption, said Wareham.

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