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Introducing the World’s Work Marketplace

larsasbjornse
Community Member

Screenshot from May 4, 2021 9_09 AM.png

Greetings Upwork Community,

 

We would like to share a big announcement with all of you! 

 

Upwork is introducing a new industry category—the work marketplace, which is designed as a place where independent professionals, like yourself, can cultivate trusted, long-term client relationships, and secure meaningful and consistent work. This effort is designed to raise awareness of Upwork and create more opportunities for our highly talented community. The changes we’ve made help us shine an even stronger spotlight on your range of skills, capabilities, and professional value, and make Upwork an even easier and more engaging place to do the work you love. 

 

At the same time, we’re unveiling a new brand identity and brand advertising campaign to help independent talent and clients better understand how our work marketplace can help them achieve more together. Our brand look and feel has been reimagined to reflect what we’re creating together and celebrates independent talent helping companies thrive in the remote economy. You will notice a variety of visual changes that bring an updated design to the site as part of our rebranding effort. This fresh new look includes a small change to our logo, updating our existing colors to brighter hues, and adding new fonts and invigorating photos and illustrations that showcase who we are today. 

 

This tremendous effort was brought to life by agencies and independent talent from our work marketplace in collaboration with Upwork’s internal team.

 

The new ad campaign, Up We Go, tells the story of independent talent and companies taking a leap forward to create better businesses, better careers, and better lives. It recognizes the importance and power of independent talent working alongside businesses to move work forward with amazing outcomes again and again. 

 

Why are we launching a new industry category?

 

2020 changed the world of work as we know it. Companies are realizing the competitive advantage of working with independent talent and independent professionals are embracing the opportunity to gain more freedom and control over their careers.

 

We coined this new industry category to better reflect how, together with our community of independent professionals and clients, we are building a place where strong, trusted relationships can thrive without the constraints of traditional work. We’re dispelling the outdated freelancer stereotypes and helping companies  understand the value of leveraging highly-skilled independent talent to accomplish anything, no matter how big or small the ambition

 

Learn more about the work marketplace industry category here

 

What is a work marketplace

 

You can think of it as an on-demand global marketplace of highly-skilled independent talent that helps companies immediately scale and grow. 

 

Talent, welcome to your professional home. 

  • For talent, the work marketplace is where independent professionals can connect with like-minded clients to grow their business and gain more freedom and control over their career while doing work they love. This new industry category carves out a place for independent talent to explore more opportunities, develop trusted work relationships, and find their home for work.

Businesses, gain control and immediately scale.

  • For clients, the work marketplace provides immediate access to the expertise of independent talent from around the world, enabling companies to have more control and create sustainable growth for their businesses by leveraging the marketplace to rapidly scale up or down based on their needs in the moment. It’s designed so that over time, companies can build a virtual talent bench of highly-skilled, independent talent to help them tackle the changing demands of businesses and market conditions. 

 

What are the ways to work in the work marketplace?

 

No matter the level of support customers need or what they want to achieve, Upwork has a solution. 

 

Talent Marketplace™ is where professionals can find the work they love and companies can hire the pros they need to help them get ahead. Easy-to-purchase project offerings are available in Project Catalog™—which allows talent to set the scope, terms, and price on pre-packaged projects so companies can quickly browse and buy projects to expand their capabilities. 

 

You can expect to see ongoing feature enhancements as we continue to improve the usability of our platform. Explore more about the ways to use Upwork in our Work Marketplace blog.

 

To celebrate this special moment, enjoy this new MixCloud mix, Up We Go! produced especially for this day by an independent producer, illustrator, and DJ, all hired right here on Upwork!

 

If you have feedback about the changes, we’d love to hear it!

 

Up We Go!

 

Sincerely,

Lars Asbjornsen

Senior Vice President, Marketing

Screenshot from May 4, 2021 9_09 AM.png

68 Comments
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Preston and Wes,

 

We had to say goodbye to the teletubbyRobot Happy He was a temporary glitch that has now been corrected and the chatbot icon is now showing as intended.

kbadeau
Community Member

Petra R wrote:

Kelly B wrote:

Well I just watched the whole video to try to glean some more information but that was no help whatsoever.


I watched it twice. Nothing was said and my attention drifted off to contemplate whether the blouse was supposed to be like that or if there has been a little meeting with a fountain pen in the washing machine.

 

Rarely has so little been said in so many words.


Selling that as "the biggest news yet" is at best "peculiar". In my 10 years here I've seen a lot of news. This isn't "the biggest" or any "news" at all.

 

If there *is* any news, it has been very poorly communicated, because clearly nobody understands the message. I am disappointed.


I'm glad I wasn't the only one who was distracted by the blouse and the fact that she seemed to have streamed the video from a hotel room

a_lipsey
Community Member

Valeria K wrote:

Preston and Wes,

 

We had to say goodbye to the teletubbyRobot Happy He was a temporary glitch that has now been corrected and the chatbot icon is now showing as intended.


Valeria, it's still only available from the Community Forum screen though. I can't find the chatbot in my profile pages, where I used to be able to click and get support. 

AveryO
Community Manager

Hi Amanda, 


Thank you for patiently waiting as I looked into this further. If memory serves me right, I don't think the chatbot icon shows in your profile pages. However, I can see that it's available on your Help Center pages. Do you need help with anything specific today?

elitegra
Community Member

Nop, this was carefully planned to ¨look¨ like recorded from a home or so. 

feed_my_eyes
Community Member

Valeria K wrote:

We introduced the work marketplace industry category to better describe what Upwork is now. 


Okay, but some of us came here looking for some clarity about what this announcement actually means. Is the "work marketplace" exactly the same as the previous marketplace, and if not, how is it different? Basically, how does this affect us? 

 

If this is all just a rebrand, then great - obviously I support anything that Upwork does to bring more clients to the platform. But IS it just a rebrand, or will there be any changes in the way that we freelancers use the platform?

 

kinector
Community Member
I really wanted to say something positive about the changes made (or not made).

The only thing I could come up with is this:

I like the slightly darker green.

👍😁👍
kbadeau
Community Member

One final complaint and then I'll disappear from the forums again for a while... I receive invitations to bid on jobs every week. When I click on the link it will either say fixed rate or intermediate/expert experience level. It still does not say what the rate is or what the price range is. I have to click on the job posting to get that information. That is nonsensical. Why is that information only partially included on invitations? I would think in the "World's Work Marketplace" all the relevant information would be included in one location.

claudiacezy
Community Member

Lars A wrote:

 

Upwork is introducing a new industry category—the work marketplace, which is designed as a place where independent professionals, like yourself, can cultivate trusted, long-term client relationships, and secure meaningful and consistent work.

 


Upwork creating a new industry category - the work marketplace ... work market/place isn't a popular term but it already exists in terms of businesses managing freelancers.


Apparently WorkMarket is also a registered trademark of ADP. A disruptive marketing attempt or another merger on the way?

zoomconcepts
Community Member

The original messaging campaign around this (especially the one sent to platform users) is really an overenthusiastic effort that's more confusing than enlightening but I'd cut them some slack - this seems to be more of a philosophy / brand repositioning push, and I for one hope it works for the broader audience it seems to be aimed at. After all, this comes along with the Q1 earnings call and part of it was probably more aimed to support medium-term brand goals and meant to excite and reassure shareholders and (re)educate outside audiences, not regular users. Someone just forgot they're speaking to two distinctly different crowds with different insight and expectations and skipped adapting the message. 

 

One thing I like in Valeria's follow up messages - and I hope it stands in the future - is the intentional step away from both gig site and especially staffing agency reputation. If this translates in future real actions, marketing and business sales efforts and site policies, and doesn't stay a static marketing bandaid statement, there may be good (and better) things ahead.