Amid uncertain times, WeTransfer encourages us to doubt everything

The times, as everyone keeps telling us, are unprecedented. But in a new brand campaign from WeTransfer, the company issues a call to the creative community to use this moment of doubt to double up on creativity. The spot, created via Preacher and directed by Biscuit's Daniel Warwick, stars up-and-coming actor Adwoa Akoto. She starts off telling us that Machu Picchu recently received a one-star online review. She goes on to pose further questions about other works of art including Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and ask whether we should question everything (Answer: Yes). The tagline is "Doubt. Create. Repeat," and the spot showcases WeTransfer's product portfolio, highlighting collaborative presentation tool Paste, sketching app Paper and "inspiration gathering" app Collect. "Nothing is more important and central to the creative process than the question of, ‘is there a better way to do this?’” said Damian Bradfield, chief creative officer and president of WeTransfer in a statement. “Historically, some of our greatest artistic achievements are born out of conflict or revolution that’s reached critical mass. Conflict and struggle draw remarkable creativity in us that connects, inspires, and soothes. That’s the time we’re living through right now, and we wanted to capture that sentiment in this spot.” The ad was filmed in Romania, with a remote crew, and the production faced a series of challenges under COVID conditions, according to Zach Watkins and Marcus Brown, creative directors at Preacher. "No one from the agency went. The question was, would the director be able to get there from Portugal? Would the DP be able to get there from Iceland? Would our talent be able to get there from London? Would borders shut down? Would Covid tests be passed? Would the local artist in Cluj be able to paint a replica of 'Starry Night' that actually looked like 'Starry Night'?" Media, handled via Noble People, includes a 30-second spot on Hulu, as well as takeovers across creative communities, including music and film sub-reddits on Reddit, and sites like Genius, HypeBeast, HighSnobiety, Vice, and Soundcloud.

Amid uncertain times, WeTransfer encourages us to doubt everything

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