Suzanne Tromp — Content Manager, WeTransfer
Suzanne talks to TheNextGag about her role at the tech company, how WeTransfer partners with artists and what makes the online tool so great.
Suzanne Tromp is a Content Manager at WeTransfer in the Netherlands.
WeTransfer is a leading file sharing service, providing a uniquely creative space for people to share files. Launched in 2009 by Bas Beerens and Nalden, WeTransfer was borne out of a simple need to provide a solution for people to send large files easily. The service now has 85 million users and prides itself on its simplicity. The founders’ desire of producing “something their parents could use” has led the WeTransfer team to a service without the complications of logins, signup forms, data capture and banner advertising.
WeTransfer is completely free when sending files of up to 2GB in size, or users can sign up to WeTransfer Plus to make 20GB transfers to multiple recipients alongside receiving 100GB of storage space and the ability to personalise and secure an account.
Instead of plastering the site with intrusive banner ads, the team has created a backdrop of curated wallpapers provided by a wide community of artists, illustrators, brands, filmmakers, photographers and events. The result is an enriched user experience to a backdrop of beautiful images. WeTransfer puts the love back into advertising with the top brands of the world.
THENEXTGAG: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN AT WETRANSFER ?
SUZANNE TROMP: I have been here for two and a half year now. I work in the editorial team at WeTransfer. My team is responsible for the editorial wallpapers that you can see on the background of the service. Every artist featured on our wallpapers is carefully curated by us. In addition to these features on wetransfer.com, we share their story via our editorial platform This Works.
TNG: WHAT WAS THE REASON FOR THE CREATION OF THE EDITORIAL PLATFORM, WETRANSFER THIS WORKS?
ST: It’s fairly new; we launched it in April this year. The goal is to tell the story behind the artists we feature on WeTransfer, but we also work on self-initiated projects that explore different aspects of creativity.
TNG: HOW DO YOU SELECT THE ARTISTS FOR THE WALLPAPERS ? DO YOU ASK THEM OR DO THEY SUBMIT THEIR ART DIRECTLY ?
ST: It depends. Most of the time we reach out to the artists, but we also receive submissions via email.
TNG: WHAT KIND OF ARTISTS ARE YOU LOOKING FOR ?
ST: We tend to focus on photography and illustration. But we feature fashion, film, design and animation as well. Our criteria for these projects and artists is that they should be innovative, relevant and evergreen.
Next to the artists we feature on WeTransfer, we work on interview series to highlight creativity in a broader sense. One of those series is Talent 2.0, in which we spoke to tastemakers coming from several disciplines. For example, we spoke to the creative director of The New York Times Magazine, Gail Bichler, about the way they curate the artists they work with for their magazine.
Just recently we did a collaboration with the great photographer Rankin. During big advertising event Cannes Lions, he shot a series about the real people in Cannes — the people that actually live there while others move in and out of the city for the big festivals.
TNG: I HAVE BEEN A BIG USER OF THE SERVICE WHILE WORKING IN AD AGENCIES. AND I WAS PARTICULARLY FOND OF THE CLEAN SERVICE AND THE BEAUTIFUL WALLPAPERS. HOW DID THE STRATEGY TO GIVE OUT AD SPACE TO ARTISTS CAME INTO LIFE ?
ST: WeTransfer started in 2009. From the beginning, we have allocated 30% of our ad inventory to art. Over 50% percent of our users are from the creative industry, so we felt it was important to support the creative industry.
TNG: WHICH ONE IS YOUR FAVORITE SO FAR ?
ST: Hard to say. I think my favorite at this moment (it changes all the time!) is this project by two Japanese designers who came up with this amazing idea. It’s called Second Life Toys and is a clever way to push awareness for the lack of organ donations in Japan. And besides that, it is amazingly cute.
Microsculpture would definitely be in my favorites too. Levon Biss, the photographer, took thousands of pictures of insects and put them together to generate a huge image of every bug he photographed. The cool thing about this project was that users could zoom in on the WeTransfer background of Microsculpture and discover every little detail of these wondrous creatures.
TNG: THE SPECIFICITY OF WETRANSFER IS ALSO THAT ALL YOUR ADS ARE AS BEAUTIFUL AS YOUR ART WALLPAPERS. DO YOU WORK WITH THE ADVERTISERS TO CREATE THE BRANDED WALLPAPERS ?
ST: Personally I am not involved in that. We do have a design team that designs these the advertisements. Our sales people and the designers work together to get the best out of these advertisements visually, so both the advertiser and our team is happy with them.
TNG: DO YOU KNOW HOW THE PLATFORM IS GOING TO EVOLVE ?
ST: At this moment, we just hope that users will discover our This Works platform and discover the stories behind our artists. We want to give the artists we feature a bigger spotlight than they’ve had before and provide them with the opportunity to showcase their work to a global audience. Of course, we’re always investigating ways to improve the platform and be able to tell stories in a new way.
TNG: AND IS THE PRODUCT GOING TO REMAIN THE SAME FOR NOW ?
ST: Our design and tech team is always working hard to improve the product and there are a lot of things happening right now. For example, we recently released WeTransfer Moment, a Chrome application that let’s you discover the editorial wallpapers on WeTransfer. Every time you open a new tab, you will be presented with one of the artworks on WeTransfer.
Suzanne Tromp
Content Manager
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