For a creative brand like Adobe, Sundance Film Festival is a hot-spot in a cold spot to reach filmmakers and creatives that utilize the brand’s tools daily to deliver works of cinematic art. Over the last 13 years as a lead sponsor, Adobe has leveraged the festival as a platform to merge product announcements with events and CSR missions to help tell a cohesive story about its brand and mission.
This year, Adobe is standing up that sponsorship with its first-ever owned space in Park City, UT, dubbed Adobe on Main, which was open Jan. 19-22, and featured three days of panel discussions, livestreams of creator interviews and how-to talks from the space in front of a live audience, and other activities and moments of respite for attendees.
Leading the brand’s efforts in Park City is Heather Freeland, Chief Brand Officer at Adobe, who oversees brand strategy, from creative expression to brand partnerships in culture, entertainment and sports to integrated marketing efforts. Ahead of the opening of Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 18, EM hopped on a call with Freeland to talk program strategy, engagement and advice for fellow brand marketers making the trek.
Event Marketer: How important is experiential marketing in your playbook as a marketer and also for the Adobe marketing organization?
Heather Freeland: One thing that is both my philosophy and that is an increasing trend in the industry is this move to really finding a balance between advertising and experiences. Particularly for a brand like Adobe, where the notion of community and bringing people together who are using our products is critical to how we tell our stories, we’re thinking these days—through all of our existing partnerships, whether it’s sports or industry or otherwise—about how do we bring our brand to life and make it more tangible? How do we bring our products directly into the hands of people through these events and experiences we’re creating?
For the full Q&A, head to CM sister pub Event Marketer.
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