You probably have uploaded or downloaded something from a CowTransfer link within the last week, if not today or even an hour ago. With the common grandeur of startup promises, the platform claims to provide “the most efficient and user-friendly online file transfer service on this planet”. Only they do deliver what’s promised! Easy file transfer in 3 clicks, with no jumping through registration hoops to start using the service, and most importantly — speed, speed, speed. Not surprising that it has caught on so quickly, especially among creatives in Shanghai. We’ve met with the company’s Founder & CEO Chen Zhang and Creative Director Lucas Debrock to learn more about CowTransfer.

奶牛快傳看起來是不是有點眼熟？你或許上周，啊不，說不定一小時前才通過它的連接上傳或下載過文件。和許多創業公司一樣，該平臺也有著華麗而莊嚴的承諾，宣稱“將提供這個星球上最高效，最友好的在線文件傳輸服務”并且，他們說到做到！只需輕點三下，便可輕松傳輸文件，不需要什么繁復費神的注冊流程，立刻就能享受到服務，最重要的是速度還特別，特別，特別快。這樣的產品能“一夜成名”，的確也沒什么好意外的，上海的創意人士群體就尤其偏愛它。我們有幸采訪到了奶牛快傳的創始人兼首席執行官張晨和創意總監Lucas Debrock，更加深入地了解了奶牛快傳的品牌故事。

張晨 Zhang Chen & Lucas Debrock

If you’re wondering about the name “Cow”, the story is quite short, but personal. Chen’s brainchild takes its name inspiration from his wife’s nickname. The ‘cow’, while that sounds funny its actually a term of endearment.  A beloved label the company continues to use with other services already in the making… but we’ll get to it later.

當然你或許最好奇的是為什么叫“奶牛”，原因倒是簡單直接，和個人經歷有關。張晨想到這個名字主要是受妻子昵稱的啟發。雖然“奶牛”聽起來有點滑稽，但其實是個愛稱。而這個名字還非常受人喜愛，該公司其他開發中的服務也有用到這個名字，關于這些我們稍后再說。

To start with, CowTransfer was born out of necessity, and initially designed for personal use. Back in 2016, when Chen worked as a technical director at creative digital production company MediaMonks, he used WeTransfer a lot. But it wasn’t perfect due to the hassle of using a VPN along with the speed issues. And transferring files with Baidu was not always an option either, because of the paid features of the service. Not to mention, not all the clients were in China. As a professional programmer Chen created his prototype of CowTransfer in only six months. First used internally at the production company, the platform was later made available for outside users once its creator left MediaMonks. Witnessing the number of his users growing, Chen saw the potential in his platform as a real business. Soon after, on May 18th, 2018 the CowTransfer was officially launched. Fast forward 2.5 years, and today, it’s a competitive, growing startup, providing services for 6 million monthly active users.

其實奶牛快傳的誕生屬于剛需，最初只是為了解決個人的需求。2016年，張晨在創意數碼制作公司MediaMonks擔任技術總監時，經常使用WeTransfer。但由于使用VPN的麻煩和速度問題，體驗不佳。而使用百度也不是長久之計，畢竟百度的服務是收費的。再者，除了中國客戶之外，還有其他地區的客戶需要照顧。于是，作為一名專業程序員，張晨只花了6個月的時間就建好了奶牛快傳的原型。最初該平臺只在制作公司內部使用，但當他離開MediaMonks后，便開始對外部用戶開放。在親眼目睹了用戶群的激增之后，張晨開始覺得這個頗具潛力的平臺，或許可以成為真正的企業。隨后，在2018年5月18日，奶牛快傳正式上線。2年半后的今天，它已經是一家頗具競爭力、成長迅速的初創公司，每月為其600萬活躍用戶提供著服務。

Like many startups, CowTransfer is fueled by a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. It’s close-knit, efficient team is lead by a founder, who truly believes in his product, value of building meaningful relationships and the importance of recruiting real talent. So when in need of a senior talent responsible for creative and artwork, Chen turned to a former colleague, Belgian Creative Director Lucas Debrock, with whom he worked with at Dr.Panda (a major Chinese children games company) in Chengdu. Chen insisted on persuading Lucas to join the team for almost a year. After Dr.Panda, Imagination, and Saatchi&Saatchi, he finally joined the team of multitaskers, just in time for CowTransfer’s first advertising client Dell.

和很多初創公司一樣，奶牛快傳是一家由滿腔熱血推進的公司。它的團隊緊密、高效，由創始人領導，而創始人相信自己的產品，懂得建立有意義的關系的價值，重視吸納真正的人才。因此，當需要負責創意和藝術的高級人才時，張晨求助于他的前同事、比利時創意總監Lucas Debrock，他們曾在成都的熊貓博士(中國的一家大型兒童游戲公司)共事。張晨勸說Lucas加入團隊花費了將近一年的時間。在經歷了熊貓博士、Imagination和盛世長城之后，Lucas終于統一加入這只才華橫溢的團隊，并且正好趕上了奶牛快傳的第一個廣告客戶戴爾。

Having built a massive user base, that’s Gen-Z at its core, last spring CowTransfer branched out to monetize the business, providing immersive advertising. The interface, where users spend 2 mins on average for each upload, download, or preview, doubles as ad space. The standard package price, similar to advertising in WeChat moments is “not cheap”, as Chen readily agrees. But because it’s a one banner interface, a 100% impression rate is guaranteed for each banner. In addition, the CowTransfer’s creative approach to displaying brand’s assets results in engaging content, that users are more eager to interact with. The click rate of the CowTransfer content/advertising banner ranges between 0.3%-22%, which exceeds the current industry standard. Most of the clients testing the new advertising channel now come from the luxury industry. For instance, CowTransfer has successful ad campaigns for Gucci, Burberry, Balenciaga, that exceeded estimated impressions by 184, 578, and 468 percent accordingly.

在建立了龐大的用戶基礎后，去年春天，以Z世代為核心的奶牛快傳開始拓展業務，并提供沉浸式廣告。奶牛快傳的用戶每次上傳、下載或預覽的界面，剛好也是投放廣告的空間，用戶平均瀏覽時間為2分鐘。張晨承認標準套餐的價格“不低”，跟“微信朋友圈”里的廣告費差不多。但這里的廣告是滿屏顯示，每支廣告都能收獲100%的關注。此外，奶牛快傳展示品牌內容的方法頗有創意，這些引人入勝的內容讓用戶更渴望與之互動。奶牛快傳展示的廣告或內容的點擊率在0.3%-22%之間，超過了目前的行業標準。例如，奶牛快傳為古馳，博柏利和巴黎世家都進行過成功的廣告宣傳，并且用戶關注度分別超出預期的184%，578%和468%。

In addition to ad placement, CowTransfer lends its front page to display content by cool creatives. The team believes it’s important to support underrepresented talent, who makes amazing things, but doesn’t receive the exposure they deserve. By creating their CowSupport platform (https://cowsupport.cowtransfer.com), they right that wrong. Once you click on the featured artwork, you’re taken to a dedicated community sharing portfolios, articles and more. On any given week, CowSupport brings a range of visual stories from a young ping pong community, a local skateboard shop, art work from Greek-South African artist, and a website building platform to name just a few.

除了廣告位置，奶牛快傳還利用首頁來展示酷炫的創意內容。他們認為，支持那些被埋沒的人才是非常重要的，這些藝術家做出了令人驚嘆的作品，卻沒有得到應有的曝光與關注。而通過建立CowSupport這個平臺（https://cowsupport.cowtransfer.com）他們改變了這一現狀。當用戶點擊某個展示的藝術作品后，便會被帶到一個分享作品集，文字和其他創意內容的創意與創造者的社群。每周，CowSupport都會帶來一系列的視覺故事，例如年輕的乒乓球社區，一個當地的滑板商店，來自希臘-南非藝術家的藝術作品，和某個網站建設平臺等等。

Despite apparent similarities of services with other file sharing companies, like WeTransfer, in Lucas’s opinion, the other platforms are not doing enough. The CowTransfer team, on the contrary, is bursting with ideas and plans. “We don’t move your files, we move your ideas” is the slogan that guides company strategy.  Both Chen and Lucas come from a creative industry, and for now, they’ve tackled just one point, file sharing… but they plan for more. In additional to CowSupport, the next new thing to expect is Project Pasture, a market place on a separate platform, where users can create a profile, share and sell their content online. In the grand scheme of things, CowTransfer is shooting to become a one-stop solution for their users to transfer, sell, manage, and display their creative content. They want to put the creator in the spotlight, aiming to build multiple platforms dedicated to extend ideas. But no matter what the future holds, the team promises to keep CowTransfer as a practical and fast solution for transferring files in and out of China, a budding community for creatives, and an efficient advertising channel for a young, trendy and restless audience. 

Lucas認為，盡管奶牛快傳與WeTransfer等其他文件共享公司的服務有明顯的相似之處，但其他平臺做得還不夠。奶牛快傳并不安于現狀，這個團隊有數不完的奇思妙想和策略規劃。“迅捷不止文件，傳輸創意無限”是帶領這家企業前行的標語。張晨和Lucas都有創意產業的背景，雖然目前他們解決了文件傳輸的問題，但這只是第一步。除了CowSupport，目前在孵化的項目還有Project Pasture，這是一個獨立的交易平臺，在這里用戶可以創建個人資料，在線分享和銷售他們創作的內容。縱觀全局，奶牛快傳正在努力成為其用戶轉移、銷售、管理和展示創意內容的一站式解決方案。他們希望將創造者放在聚光燈下，建立多個平臺，致力于擴展創意。但無論未來如何，奶牛快傳團隊承諾，奶牛快傳將仍是一個實用，快速，國內外均可使用的文件傳輸解決方案，一個新興的創意社區，一個受眾年輕、時尚且活力充沛的優質廣告渠道。

SHP Plus

[行知合一，廣告中國]

[craft + creativity in the Chinese advertising