Creative Energy — Energy Company Innogy SE Gets Connected via Creative Cloud

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.

Image courtesy of Innogy.

Creative teamwork powered by Adobe Creative Cloud

The Innogy video team benefits in particular from Creative Cloud services. Features such as Creative Cloud Libraries facilitate cross-border collaboration among the three team members in Essen, their two colleagues in the Netherlands, and the remaining two in the UK.

Optimized to meet the needs of creative professionals, Creative Cloud Libraries make it much easier for the video team of seven to share clips from rough cuts with each other than traditional cloud-based services. They can access assets directly from their Creative Cloud desktop applications, which are almost always running on their computers. A small detail with great effect.

“Both in terms of collaboration and mutual inspiration, it is hugely beneficial in our day-to-day work that we can quickly view the project progress that the team has made and give them feedback straightaway thanks to Creative Cloud Libraries,” says Martin. Because the cross-border team is separated by many miles, Creative Cloud plays an important role in connecting the members of the team.

Efficient workflows for modern content marketing

Thanks to these benefits, Creative Cloud helps the Innogy video team to implement modern content marketing with high output and creative storytelling. The team has already produced over 700 videos, helping greatly to bring the Innogy brand to life in the context of a forward-looking “experience business” approach.

The video professionals create interesting background pieces to demonstrate the innovations in the world of renewable energy, emotional short films to break the ice at the start of meetings and conferences, and “karaoke taxi” clips featuring Innogy employees so that names and faces become likeable colleague with their own story to share. Other formats include panel discussions between Innogy decision makers and politicians, as well as street surveys.

The content is not distributed arbitrarily, but is tailor-made for different employees and other target audiences, both for the internal news platform and for social networks such as YouTube and Instagram.

“The functionality and usability of Creative Cloud really helps us to produce a lot of content within a limited period of time,” says Martin. He is certain that Creative Cloud offers the Innogy video team even more potential than is currently being utilized. For example, the team is planning on integrating mobile applications for smartphones and tablets into the workflow.