Some of the biggest brands have tapped freelancers and agencies on Upwork to create the brand identities, ad campaigns, videos, and social media stories you’ve probably seen on TV, around the web, or even in your inbox. These organizations are drawn to the agility, speed, and dedicated support they can get from freelancers and specialized agencies—especially when it comes to experimenting with marketing and design.
These projects aren’t just logos and brochures—some are large-scale multichannel campaigns, award-winning apps, and interactive streaming platforms for chart-topping bands.
1. Shoot a TV commercial, on location, with actors—and an original score!
Put your brand front and center on TV or streaming services with a TV commercial for any budget, from cinematic commercials to short, clip-based ads.
2. Create illustrations and captions for Instagram.
A designer or illustrator can work up a series of original illustrations or images that will help your brand stand out in your users’ Instagram feeds.
3. Design a multimedia event experience.
Planning a big offline event? An agency can help design every aspect, from audio and visual experiences at the event to collateral like landing pages for registrations, signage, printed materials, and pre-event marketing.
4. Create a layout for a publication—like a newsletter, ebook, or monthly magazine.
Want to start putting out a monthly publication of content? Freelancers or an agency can be like your own publishing house, designing a ready-to-print layout on time, every month.
5. Create a video of your offline event or new location.
Freelance videographers and agencies in your area can shoot and produce video on-site for a property or your next event. Showcase real estate listings or new locations with a polished, fully edited video. Or, get footage of an event you can use to promote future events.
6. Develop branded videos to introduce who you are and what you’re about.
Create a video that puts a face to your brand, tells your story, and showcases your products or services. A video editor or studio can handle production from beginning to end, establishing the art direction and storyboard, shooting live footage in multiple locations, and editing a polished finished product.
7. Run a UX audit of your website or app.
A UX pro can conduct a full UX audit and analysis, then provide their findings and recommendations to improve your site—and your signups, sales, and conversions. Whether you need to optimize it for mobile or streamline a registration process, a UX designer can deliver wireframes or a working prototype to get you started.
8. Have custom icons or thumbnails designed for your website, mobile app, or podcast.
Create memorable icons that improve your site’s UX or represent your mobile app clearly on a mobile device screen. Have a podcast? Design a custom thumbnail for your channel.
9. Refresh your brand identity with an entirely new design system.
Start with a new brand strategy or refresh an existing one. A creative agency can brainstorm new messaging, update your logo, photography, and identity system, and develop a new website with fresh content and design to help boost engagement or ramp up sales.
10. Create animated characters, or one-off animations to demonstrate how a product works.
Animations can be as simple as a 360 rotation of a 3D model or as complex as a character brought to life. An animator can work seamlessly with your web or graphic designer to deliver animated components that make your presentation pop.
11. Design custom Snapchat filters or Instagram stickers for your brand, locations, or event.
Market yourself where your audience is: on social media. Clever Snapchat filters and animated gifs let customers promote your brand on their stories.
12. Get professional CAD drawings for a real estate, building, or remodeling project.
Need CAD drawings of a floorplan, blueprint, architectural project, or plumbing and electrical schematics? Professional CAD freelancers can work with you to bring your specs and dimensions to life. They can create accurate drafts in a format that’s easy to hand off to tradesmen or contractors or develop digital versions for your real estate website.
13. Design product labeling or product packaging.
Create custom packaging for your product based on your exact specs, ready for production.
14. Produce a 3D animated TV commercial.
Get a commercial made to air on network television or streaming services with cutting-edge 3D modeling technology, animators to create 3D characters and visual effects, and musicians to compose original music, you’ll have a state-of-the-art 3D commercial that’s ready to air.
15. Localize videos and other assets for other languages and countries.
Get localized versions of videos with translated voiceover and on-screen text, or a full recreation of a video with local talent sourcing (actors or voice talent) and location scouting.
Success lessons from the last recession
History demonstrates that humans are amazingly creative, resilient, and resourceful. With a willingness to ask tough questions and the courage to make necessary changes, business owners can take strategic steps for strengthening a company to withstand what lies ahead. Below are four ways to prepare your business for a recession.
1. Take care of #1: the customer
Groupon, a group buying site offering discounts on local goods and services, launched in 2008 when the country was plunged deep into the recession. Yet by 2010, it was estimated Groupon generated $760 million in revenue—up from $33 million the year before. You may be thinking their hockey stick-like rise was because they pioneered the discount marketplace, but as the next example shows, you can still succeed during tough times in a highly-competitive market.
MOD Pizza opened in 2008 with several local pizza restaurants and large chains competing for stomach space, and when people were cutting back on eating out. Despite that, MOD Pizza grew so quickly that it expanded to new locations within a year and sustained rapid growth. By 2019, it had 442 restaurants nationwide.
Why did these two businesses thrive during such an unlikely time? Because the company didn’t benefit until the customer did first. Groupon serves two customers: the business and the consumer. Groupon provided small businesses an efficient way to gain mass exposure and bring in new customers at a time when marketing budgets were shrinking and consumers were cutting back on spending. Groupon also offered consumers an affordable way to try new products or services at up to 70% discounts, which stretched their discretionary spending dollars and increased consumer confidence.
MOD Pizza offered people an affordable way to eat quality food, fast. For a flat $8, customers could walk down a line and create a custom pizza or salad with up to 30 different toppings. This flat rate not only made it affordable for an entire family to eat out, but the number of topping choices also gave customers a feeling of control and freedom to indulge in excess. Those were two feelings that many people lacked and craved at the time.
2. Get a handle on your cash flow
Cash flow is the lifeblood of your business, and cash flow issues are the cause behind 82% of businesses’ failures. Anything can affect your cash flow, from a pandemic to the weather, but it’s often affected by not truly knowing the numbers. You always want to know your numbers so that you know what to push ahead and pull back on, and how to shift your business strategy to remain profitable during good and lean times.
Years before the last recession, LEGO was close to bankruptcy as it continued bleeding money but couldn’t identify why. The company implemented better financial analysis and dove into financial triage which included setting up short-term financial targets, improving processes, and cutting the number of product components by nearly 60%.
These and other changes got LEGO back on stable ground and propelled it to become the fastest-growing toy company in the world. By managing the business for growth instead of sales, they remained resilient and continued growth during the worst years of the recession. In fact, from 2022 through 2022, LEGO grew pre-tax profits by four times.
3. Adjust offerings to satisfy an unfilled need
In 2007, Netflix offered a streaming service as an option to their DVD subscription. By 2009, trends indicated people prefer watching movies online and on their schedule, rather than on a network. Netflix jumped on the opportunity by offering unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows for $7.99 per month. The result: its customer base grew by 3 million. That was at a time when the economy was dragging bottom.
Although film studios and TV networks also saw the streaming trend coming, they didn’t respond fast enough. So while developing their streaming services, they kept eyeballs on their content by licensing shows to Netflix. This may have seemed like a smart short-term move, but it allowed Netflix to leverage its core competencies and use its competitor’s content to turn their viewers into Netflix customers.
The takeaway here is that Netflix figured out a way to give customers a cost-efficient alternative to what they want. At a time when customers were cutting back on movie tickets and cable TV subscriptions, Netflix offered an entire family unlimited entertainment for less than eight dollars a month.
Netflix demonstrated that success requires more than having an ear to the ground for what customers want, as a business must also operate with agility to meet that need quickly. Before the Great Recession, Target had years of enviable sales and profit growth by offering stylish, low-priced home and apparel items. But in 2008, sales dropped sharply as consumers felt even an inexpensive shirt was too pricey when that money could be spent on necessities like food.
Target responded with innovative inventory management by doubling its stores’ floor space for food and expanding items in its Market Pantry and Archer Farms food brands. Then it launched a massive media campaign to remind consumers of its brand promise “Expect more, pay less.” To build customer loyalty, it rolled out a program offering Target credit/debit card holders a 5% discount. By 2008 Market Pantry’s sales increased by 30% and Archer Farms’ by 13%.
4. Be willing to adapt how you do business
From restaurants delivering groceries to car manufacturers making ventilators, businesses today are quickly reconfiguring themselves to better serve their customers and keep revenue flowing in. Now’s the time to look hard at every opportunity and not be shy about doing things a little (or a lot) differently.
During an economic downturn, it’s more difficult to justify clinging to what doesn’t work and more reason to try something new, even if it means reinventing yourself. In 2019, Domino’s Pizza sales were hitting all-time lows. Executives knew their food tasted terrible as customers complained for years that the “crust tastes like cardboard” and “the sauce tastes like ketchup.”
Domino’s had to make a huge change, so the company took a risk by drastically changing its nearly 5050-year-oldecipe and launching a humorous self-mocking marketing campaign around the new taste. The new recipe was a success and sales increased, but Domino’s didn’t rest on its heels. In 2015, they invested in more technology, including updating their ordering system to appeal to younger generation customers. This included offering new ways to order from smart TVs, Apple Watches, to Twitter. By 2017, the new recipe and added technology helped increase the company’s share prices by 60x.
