CreativesAtWork’s top 10 proudest moments
As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, the CreativesAtWork team looks back at our incredible journey over the last decade and picked out the 10 moments that made us really proud of the work we do.
10. Won our first Promax Award and scored a finalist nomination at the New York Film and TV Festival
“Be Schooled” was a 13-episode broadcast series produced by CreativesAtWork, and hosted by Benjamin Kheng and Sarah Riley Tang. It is a variety sports programme in which current school sports athletes pit their skills with alumni school athletes over a competitive match.
To make the series more exciting and engaging for our audience, we presented it in a sexy and snazzy way, complete with a cinematic opener. We are very proud that our opener obtained Silver at Promax, and the programme was a finalist at the New York Film and TV Festival under the Best Sports Programme category.
9. We reached our first milestone of 1,500 freelancers
When CreativesAtWork first started out, we had 80 talented video broadcast freelancers with us. Most of them were retrenched from their former jobs. With their dedication and belief in us, our freelancers have grown with us over the last decade.
Today, our pool of freelancers has increased rapidly, and CreativesAtWork’s expertise and skillsets have expanded beyond just video. We now cover the entire spectrum of the creative content creation value chain, with a stable of more than 1,500 talented freelancers, and growing.
8. We launched Asia's first 2-day Freelancing 101 Workshop in 2016
As part of our commitment to helping freelancers develop their skills, we launched Asia’s first 2-day Freelancing 101 Workshop in 2016. This workshop was developed to help creatives advance their freelancing careers at every level. It was very well-received with great reviews at launch and has been one of our most sought-after workshops since.
Today, our Freelancing 101 Workshop has gone on to produce over 200 graduates from the program, across a range of freelance creatives and industries.
7. Launch of the Freelance Creative Exchange podcast, with 12,000 listeners to date
In 2018, we launched Freelance Creative Exchange, Asia's first podcast on freelancing for creatives. Since then, we have amassed over 300,000 views and listens across various platforms such as Youtube, Facebook, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
Through our podcast, we have covered a variety of topics and provided valuable resources to help our freelancer community upscale themselves and run successful businesses. Last year, we launched our first spinoff, Uncool, where our creatives shared stories about their journey to success.
For our upcoming NFT launch, we ran a new series, How to NFT, a beginner's guide to blockchain technology from the perspective of creatives.
6. Moved from mass recruitment to a curated group of freelancers
CreativesAtWork is not a platform. We do not just match jobs. Neither do we just send random profiles of freelancers to people who are looking to hire them. We actively pitch for projects, work directly with freelancers to manage our client's projects, and are involved in the project every step of the way.
This is why we have changed our freelancer network to a curated one, to make sure that our freelancers are vetted, qualified, and recognised. This ensures that we put forth the best quality work for our clients, while giving us the time to serve each of our freelancers too.
5. Launch of the BRIDGE project to support freelancers during the pandemic
During the pandemic, CreativesAtWork launched the BRIDGE project, an initiative aimed at helping freelancers and 30 SMEs in Singapore discover new opportunities to work together.
Through this program, we have managed to help some 200 freelancers to pick up new skills, and develop new ways to make income. The 30 SMEs that participated in the program also benefited by trying out a new marketing approach for the first time. They also discovered that investing in themselves and freelancers was a good return on investment.
We were able to deliver work, that in commercial terms, was 3-5 times the provided budget. Some of the freelancers also earned extended work arrangements with these SMEs.
4. STOREYS, our nationwide campaign, received more than 10 best short film awards and counting
What story would you tell if you had the resources to do so? This thought was what inspired STOREYS, our nationwide campaign to promote a positive impact. We wanted to see what stories freelancers want to tell, as well as how these stories will impact Singapore and drive positive change.
A ground-up initiative launched on 10th June 2019, piloted by CreativesAtWork and supported by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA), STOREYS was a movement that harnessed the power of video and social media to shed light on issues that matter, or should matter, to us as Singaporeans.
For this campaign, CreativesAtWork covered the production costs of content creators who are passionate about social issues and have a story to tell. We got onboard mentors to make sure these worthwhile stories will impact the maximum audience online. STOREYS has amassed more than 1.5 million views to date.
3. Created 50N50 to celebrate Singapore's 50th birthday and debuted on History Channel
In celebration of Singapore's 50th birthday in 2015, CreativesAtWork and our partners (JellyFarm Studios and HISTORY) worked together to launch 50N 50 – a community collaboration project showcasing Singapore’s creative talents across multiple platforms.
A first of its kind, the multi-platform project aims to invoke and strengthen the identity of Singaporeans by tracing Singapore’s evolution from a post-war colony 50 years ago to a thriving first-world nation today.
50N 50 featured creative works revolving around 10 different themes, ranging from HDB to transport to education to economy to people and more. The initiative provided a valuable opportunity for local creative talents to demonstrate their works and bring the international spotlight to the incredible places, people, and food in Singapore. The series debuted on the HISTORY Channel and on its on-demand platform.
2. Published our first book, “The Business of Freelancing”
Since 2012, CreativesAtWork has been focusing its efforts on helping freelancers thrive, not just survive, in their creative freelancing careers. In 2020, we published a book that aims to bring about more awareness of this lesser-known profession and generate the next wave of “Future Leaders” with entrepreneurial and self-employed mindsets.
1. Early adopters of the Ministry of Manpower’s TS SEPs and TS Media Freelancers
As a progressive hirer and employer, CreativesAtWork is an early-adopter of the Singapore Ministry of Manpower’s Tripartite Standards on Self-Employed Persons (TS SEPs) and Tripartite Standards on Procurement on Services from Media Freelancers (TS Media Freelancers). We see this as a significant step towards professionalising the freelance sectors and ensuring fair treatment for all freelancers, and also to show our commitment to the freelancers that we work with.
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