Expansive Campaign Includes a Three-Minute Brand Film Showcasing the New Ways We Work

Effort Encourages Talent and Businesses to Take a Leap Forward into New Ways of Working, Told Via Inspiring New Film

Upwork Inc. (Nasdaq: UPWK), the world’s work marketplace that connects businesses with independent talent, today announced an entirely refreshed brand, tagline, and global campaign to advance how it attracts and engages with the world’s best freelancers and companies of all sizes.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210504006069/en/

Freelancing is far more the norm than ever before and the pandemic has only accelerated the trend. As companies learn to navigate the new work landscape, Upwork is setting out to solve two core problems businesses face: the constraints of work with limited resources and critical skills gaps.

“We’re seeing a dramatic shift in the behaviors of global businesses down to nascent independent talent,” said Upwork SVP of Marketing Lars Asbjornsen. “The reality is a new work era is upon us, one in which we can all be free to work in the ways we prefer, with more scale, agility, control, and growth potential. Our goal is to help create economic opportunity for customers by offering them multiple ways to work on Upwork.”

The rebrand and new campaign follows the launch of a new industry category, the work marketplace, which was born in response to businesses rapidly changing needs and increased usage of freelancers. Upwork makes it easy for freelancers and companies to connect and build trusted, long-term relationships that help them achieve more together. More information on the world’s work marketplace is available here.

Both the rebrand and campaign were developed and executed by the creative agency, Alto, along with a team of freelancers, all of whom are a part of Upwork’s work marketplace.

Upwork’s New Look

The rebrand is celebrating an emerging workforce of independent talent helping companies thrive in the remote economy. It seizes on the cultural moment at hand as the entire world is entering a new era of work and presents the brand with a refreshed identity that embodies what Upwork is and always has been. A complete overhaul of the master brand, including the logo, reflects Upwork’s optimistic perspective on the current and future potential of freelancing.

The new brand identity balances the duality of Upwork’s brand promise. On one side: warmth and connectivity. On the other: precision and efficiency. These two sides of Upwork seamlessly coexist in the new brand identity, and together articulate its offering unlike anyone else.

Brand Campaign

A launch film, released today, tells the story of freelancers and companies taking a leap forward to create better businesses, better careers, and better lives.

Crafted from a creative platform “Up We Go”, the film was inspired by the real stories of customers experiencing transformation in their work and lives every day via Upwork. It communicates that once the old constraints have been lifted, and independent talent lives at the heart of every business, we can accomplish great things together. The new way we work is defined by opportunity and abundance, not challenge and scarcity; flexibility in time and space, not limited by four office walls; valued and trusted relationships, not rigid employment contracts. The goal is to reflect Upwork’s role as a positive growth tool that is aiding businesses to push past current misconceptions and aiding independent workers to pursue their professional goals.

Through the three-minute narrative, the film portrays an ambitious CEO working with her Upwork team, made up of a coder based in Hong-Kong, a designer who leaves the UK to be closer to his girlfriend in Italy, and an engineer who has left Silicon Valley and moved his family up the coast to be closer to nature and have a more well-rounded life. With an aligned vision and confidence in Upwork’s solution providing avenues for the new world of work, the CEO and her team ultimately forge ahead to success. By the film’s end, the viewer has experienced each team member's journey and has felt the freedom that comes with flexible-work solutions.

The film work also includes a one minute broadcast spot and four 30 second and four 15 second spots, each telling the story from both a business and an independent talent perspective. The campaign will be supported with broadcast, outdoor, podcast/radio, digital, and social efforts.

“Upwork is a pioneer in the space with twenty years of connecting independent talent and companies and continuing to lead the new way of work, which is exactly the kind of perspective the world needs as we all navigate this massive transition,” said Hannes Ciatti, CCO and founder at Alto. “Translating their vision of better human connections and work into a wholly new brand identity and platform, and communicating it at such a vital moment is the kind of challenge we dream of solving.”

About Upwork

Upwork is the world’s work marketplace that connects businesses with independent talent. We serve everyone from one-person startups to 30% of the Fortune 100 with a powerful, trust-driven platform that enables companies and freelancers to work together in new ways that unlock their potential. Our talent community earned over $2.3 billion on Upwork in 2020 across more than 10,000 skills, including website & app development, creative & design, customer support, finance & accounting, consulting, and operations. Learn more at www.upwork.com and join us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

About Alto

Alto is an international award-winning creative agency from the co-founder and leadership team of JohnXHannes, awarded “Top 10 World's Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company, #3 Worldwide Independent Agency at Cannes Lions and twice named AdAge’s “U.S. Small Agency of the Year."

The word Alto in Italian means “to stand tall.” In a market where creativity is allegedly on its deathbed, the agency believes standing tall is more important than ever. To effectively create industry-shaping work, the team is structured around a lean core of highly experienced players that can be scaled to fit the needs of each client and project.

The agency client roster includes H&M Global, Upwork, Montefiore-Einstein and Expensify and has created brand partnerships with cultural influencers like John Malkovich, Serena Williams, Neymar Jr, Gisele Bündchen, Ana de Armas and Lil Wayne. Alto has received the highest accolades in creativity, entertainment and effectiveness, and has garnered 120+ major international awards, including an Emmy and two Cannes Lions Grand Prix.

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