Germany-based energy company Innogy SE uses Creative Cloud to connect its in-house video team, which is spread across three countries.
Image courtesy of Innogy.
Innogy SE was created from the Renewable Energy division of German energy giant RWE in 2016. While it is a very young company, it is still also a very large one. Around 40,000 employees supply some 23 million customers in 11 European markets with wind, water, and solar energy. In Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK, the company is one of the largest gas and electricity suppliers.
When it comes to establishing both a strong community spirit internally and a strong brand presence externally, the company’s Communications department plays a crucial role. The company uses informative and entertaining moving image formats to convey its vision of a modern, decarbonized, decentralized, and digital energy world to various target audiences. To do this, the in-house video team takes advantage of the creative capabilities and collaborative workflows provided by Adobe Creative Cloud.
Wanted: Powerful and intuitive creative software
When deciding on the most appropriate production model, the company opted for an internal video crew and against complete outsourcing to service providers when it was established two-and-a-half years ago. An international team of seven from Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK were tasked with planning, producing, and publishing videos for all in-house digital channels. The establishment of a cross-border video network also defined the requirements for the perfect software system.
Video editing, visual effects, and sound editing software needed to enable the team to achieve professional results. At the same time, both experienced users and novices from other creative fields should be able to use it intuitively. This is because the responsible Innogy team is made up predominantly of video editors and graphic designers who are experts in high-quality storytelling but are not trained video editing and visual effects specialists.
Seamless integration with other frequently used graphics apps was another important requirement. It was also important to help ensure that the international team’s project work ran smoothly by simplifying asset sharing and the digital exchange of ideas.
A single license for a complete solution
After comparing a number of alternative options, Innogy opted for Adobe Creative Cloud for enterprise having been impressed by the overall package. “The powerful video tools included in the solution—Premiere Pro CC and After Effects CC—provide us with a wide range of creative options and are easy to use,” says Martin Pack, Executive Producer on the video team at Innogy SE in Essen, Germany.
Two weeks of training provided by Adobe partner Mediatec, a system vendor for broadcasting technology, was sufficient. Since then, the Innogy video team has been able to get new colleagues up to speed on its own.
Because Creative Cloud is designed as a complete solution, the video team can finalize projects using graphics tools such as Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC. The creative professionals use these tools to create the lower thirds and other design elements that complete a video.
“One license for all the apps that we need—that really is a practical solution for a team that works across media,” says Martin.
The team is able to finish almost all tasks in house. Only very specific applications in the area of motion graphics are provided by external specialists. Thanks to support for certain third-party video formats in Premiere Pro, however, it is easy for the video team to integrate project files from external service providers into an ongoing editing project.
