The Idea Bounty Blog in Bounty Winners

For those of you who have no idea what the Top 29 is here is a bit of an explanation - Starting with the awarding of the Peperami brief last year we here at Idea Bounty have started handing out Gold, Silver and Bronze Award to the top deserving creatives from each brief. The number of awards for each brief will depend on how many truly outstanding Ideas we received. These Awards are there to help you brag about your good Ideas and they need to be worthy of this! 

The Allan Gray Orbis Foundation brief produced a total of 29 really outstanding Ideas - these Ideas were debated and discussed to the finest detail before picking a winner. And even though we only have one winner all the creatives who managed to get their Ideas into this top 29 deserve some credit. To start off here is some praise from the guys over at the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation:

All of our winners should be receiving their award emails shortly – congrats! Thank you again to all of you for the support and love, here's to next year and even more awesomeness!

PS: If you are one of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Top 29 and have not received your award by Friday the 11th of March please mail us on awards@ideabounty.com and we will sort the problem out! 

One of the best things about working at Idea Bounty is being able to pick up the phone and call a winner - Its a small thing but I usually get as excited as the winner on the other end, almost like I pocketed some cash myself. Calling our latest winner Lindy (pocketing $3,000 for her solution to the Allan Gray Orbis Foundations brief) was no different, especially considering that she managed to come out at the top of the pile on quite a tough brief. 

Over all we received some outstanding Ideas in answer to the Allan Gray Orbis Foundations quest to find the right applicants for their fellowship program. Some of the Ideas pulled some serious out the box thinking out of the bag and others went in directions we could never have dreamed of. Over all we ended up taking 18 Ideas to a final selection workshop - which gives you an Idea of the quality Ideas that you all produced! 

I would like to start this post by thanking everyone who makes up the Idea Bounty creative community. 2009 has been one hell of a year with more than $30,000 being handed out in Bounties and more than a few learnings along the way - none of it could have been possible without all of you!

So from the bottom of our love-filled hearts, we'd like to say thanks for all the support, feedback and simply outstanding Ideas. Idea Bounty would not be where it is without you. I promise you all that we have some very exciting things planned for next year  - most of them aimed at rewarding you and our ever-expanding community. Things are kicking off today with the awarding of Gold, Silver and Bronze commendations to the Top 100 Ideas that were submitted for the Peperami brief...

From now on, at the end of every brief we will be handing out Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards to the top deserving creatives, on the odd occasion we'll even be awarding a Grand Prix prize for truly exceptional work. The number of awards may not necessarily be 100 per brief, but we'll go into more details about how this is going to work in the New Year. For now, we'd like to congratulate the recipients of our first ever Gold, Silver and Bronze Idea Bounty Awards!

It should be noted that there were some truly outstanding performaces from a few of the creatives who made it into the Top 100. A very special congratulations must go out to Chris Barton for picking up two Silver Awards. Taking away two Bronze Awards each are Todd Allen, Steve Little, Tom O'Donnell, Brian Johnson, Murice Forget and Glenn Holberton. Then in a truly outstanding display Louise Smith managed to pick up three Bronze Awards and Nicky Orbine scooped up four Bronze Awards. It must also be pointed out that Todd Allen and Glenn Holbertun were awarded three Awards each - two Bronze and one Silver Award. Congratulations everyone - you can all feel proud!

1. Kevin Baldwin
2. Rowland Davies

1. Helen Warburton
2. Steve Williams
3. Aran Rees
4. Phil Smithson
5. Todd Allen
6. Chris Barton x2
7. Patrik Danielsson
8. Rob Scott
9. Bobby Hui
10. Anton Reyniers
11. James Whiting
12. RW Hedges
13. Juliana Camilleri
14. Jade Adami
15. Paul Kemp
16. Alexander Holt
17. Iain Whiteley
17. Glenn Holberton
19. Melissa Royle-Guimaraes
20. Chris Burridge

1. Edward Hart
2. Eugene Ruane
3. Nicky Orbine x4
4. Vladimir Vanecek
5. Blake Pearson
6. James Watson
7. Dave Colley
8. Craig Rutkunas
9. Andrew Jenks
10. Mel Rees
11. Stuart Greenfield
12. Richard Zhuk
13. Donnie Suazo
14. Daniel Peaccock
15. Todd Allen x2
16. Mathew Bridgwood
17. Jonathon Owens
18. David Shute
19. Adina Mihaela Chirica
20. Shane Kavanagh
21. Rob Phipps
22. Eamon Doherty
23. Victoria Ufondu
24. Reinhardt Hollstein
25. Jag Singh
26. Craig Porter
27. Chris Zair
28. Katie Mountjoy
29. Louise Smith x3
30. Andy Schär
31. Steve Little x2
32. Hollie Belton
33. Siggi Halling
34. James Robinson
35. Tom O'Donnell x2
36. Lorraine Etherington
37. Tim Glynne-Jones
38. Justin Price
39. Sam Abercrombie
40. Brian Johnson x2
41. Alexander Gordon
42. Janine Ferrie
43. Jason Artry
44. Cody Gibbs
45.Katie Leslie
46. Maurice Forget x2
47. Mark Kavanagh
48. Casey B Dolan
49. Kevin Parry
50. Charlotte Overton
51. Henry Steedman
52. Scott McPate
53. David Farthing
54. Glenn Holberton x2
55. Alex Waddingham
56. Mary-Ann Arber
57. Angela Gromova
58. Duncan Paterson
59. Andra Oprisan
60. Trevor Ames
61. Kate Sprague
62. Kianna Figueroa
63. Bilal Malik
64. Aimee Marshall
65. Luke Martin
66. Mark Elliott

All of our winners should be receiving their award emails shortly – congrats! Thank you again to all of you for the support and love, here's to next year and even more awesomeness!

PS: If you are one of the Peperami Top 100 and have not received your award by Wednesday the 9th please mail us at awards@ideabounty.com and we will sort the problem out!

Firstly we have to thank you all for your patience in waiting for this announcement - We know it has taken longer than usual to let you know who the winner is. Infact I think the last time it took this long to pick a winner was when we hosted the Red Bull brief earlier this year. Secondly we need to congratulate every person who submitted an idea. The process of choosing the winner was long and hard - with many debates and discussions around the ideas. I dont want to get into too much detail but you can read about why it took so long here.

At the end of it all the Peperami team from Unilever was seriously impressed with the ideas and after a rigorous idea selection workshop (which included the Idea Bounty team and SmartWorks the production house that do the execution of the idea) they decided that they could not pick a single idea and instead bought two! This is a first in Idea Bounty history and is testament to the quality of ideas and high level of creativity that all of you posses. Infact we were as impressed with the ideas that we are currently putting together a little something something for the creatives who produced the top 100 Ideas – keep an eye out on your inbox, the blog and future newsletters for word on our plans.

"We were very impressed by the standard and quality of the ideas – our biggest challenge was picking a winner from such a high calibre of thinking. I would like to thank the Idea Bounty community for all their hard work and effort. We couldn’t be more happy with the process and outcome and look forward to sharing the campaign with you in 2010"

~ Noam Buchalter, Marketing Manager, Peperami

But enough of that - We are proud to announce that the winners of the Peperami brief, and walking away with $10000 and $5000 respectively are creatives: Kevin Baldwin and Rowland Davies. Congratulations guys you really deserve it - fighting your way to the top of a pile of 1185 ideas is not easy! We really hope you have a great time spending that cash. Unfortunately we can’t give you all the info on the Ideas – you’ll just have to keep an eye out for the ads on TV! You can, however, read on for an interview with each of our winners

Winner: Kevin Baldwin
Idea: "Offspring"
Bounty: $10000

1.  First and foremost, congratulations on having your idea selected as having the best print concept - never mind the extra $5,000 for creative brilliance you landed. Did you think you had the winning Idea?
No, I’d never be that cocky!  I was happy with what I came up with, but I knew this brief would attract a lot of entries, so the chance of winning would be pretty small.

2. Tell us a bit more about yourself and how you stumbled across Idea Bounty and the Peperami brief.
I’ve been a copywriter since the mid-80s at a number of agencies, though with breaks to write books (three about football, one about baldness) and also to write questions and rude putdowns on the Weakest Link.  For the last year, I’ve been a full-time stay-at-home husband/father; I still do bits and pieces of freelance, but looking after our two young children – plus the fact that I can usually only work via e-mail and phone – means I’m necessarily restricted in how much I can do. As for the brief – I saw it mentioned on a few advertising-related sites and checked it out.

3. What drew you to submitting an Idea? Was it the brand or the challenge presented?
To be honest, it was the money!  I know that sounds terribly mercenary, but it’s the truth.  It did cross my mind that if I were to win, it would be a boost to know that I can still do it, but the money was the main factor.

4. How long did it take you to come up with the idea - was it a toilet moment (I get lots of ideas on the toilet) or a cunningly crafted plan?
It’s hard to say exactly.  The time between reading the brief and doing the work was probably a couple of weeks, but I didn’t actually sit down and concentrate on it at any point.  But for me, that’s an ideal way to work.

One of the best things about this brief was the amount of time given to work on it – it’s such a rare thing these days, both within agencies and especially when freelancing.  It’s usually about instant solutions and having first reviews within a day or two, which makes it hard to get much further than first thoughts.

I remember reading a book about the creative process when I was starting out – it may have been Alastair Crompton’s ‘Craft of Copywriting’, though I’m not sure – in which the author described his preferred modus operandi.  He liked to read the brief a few times, take in all the available information and then just let it simmer gently at the back of his brain for a while (even a week or two) until by some mysterious process an idea would pop into the front of his brain as if from nowhere.  I’ve always found that works for me when I’ve been given the time; it appears to have done so on this occasion too.

5. By profession you are a copy writer - with quite a bit of experience - do you think this gave you a significant advantage? Would you mind telling us a bit more about what you have worked on in the past?
It probably was a help in knowing how to get to the nub of the brief and how to bear in mind factors like the market and the history of the brand while trying to be entertaining.  And in how to put the ideas forward in a clear way.

As for past campaigns – too many to mention, though you’ll find a fair few on my website. The long-copy press campaign for Epson was a highlight, though that was written before a lot of current creatives were walking.  In recent years, I’ve worked on some Unilever brands, such as Persil, Ragu and Chicken Tonight, though I’m not sure that was of any particular help when writing for Peperami.

6. What was your process for tackling the brief - I know you spend a lot of time looking after your kids. Do you think they had an influence on your submission and the direction you took?
Without giving away too much of the idea – no, there are no recognisable character traits of our children in the work!  Though there was a ten-week period of the ‘terrible twos’ which our son went through in the summer which came fairly close…

7. Your winning submission "Offspring" contained some very amusing puns - especially in your print ads - would you describe yourself as a funny guy?
No.  That would be as pointless, misguided and almost certainly inaccurate as putting ‘GSOH’ in a dating ad. It would be better to ask people who know me whether I’m funny.  Probably not anyone I’ve worked with, though.

8. We assume that you have no problem with Crowdsourcing, (since you submitted an idea) what do you think it will take for the concept of mass idea generation to become standard thought for big brands?
It will depend on the success (or otherwise) of those brands that give it a go.  If those brands end up running good, successful campaigns then other brands will take notice and be more inclined to try it.

The big step will be when a brand uses Crowdsourcing to come up with a new, completely original campaign rather than building on existing work (as was the case with Peperami).  If that can be shown to work, I can see a lot of brands taking the concept seriously.

9. It must be awesome to know you are going to see your ideas all over TV and in print - How do you feel about this and any plans for the $10,000 you pocketed in the process?
It’s always good to see your work out there – except for those occasions when you don’t want to admit to your friends that you had anything to do with it…

Plans for the money?  I’ll be able to tell the kids that rumours of Santa’s death have been greatly exaggerated.  And we currently have a half-built kitchen which will probably take care of the rest.

10. Lastly if you were given an unlimited budget to develop a product or idea what would you create?
I have absolutely no idea!  But maybe if I let the question stew at the back of my mind for a couple of weeks, something may occur.


Creative: Rowland Davies
Idea: "Little Ones"
Bounty: $5000

1. First and foremost, congratulations on having your TV idea selected as the best of 1185 entries - Did you think you had the winning Idea?
Thanks. I don't think you can ever tell if you have the winning idea unless you've seen what everyone else has come up with. What I did know was that I had an idea that worked and made me laugh when I thought of it.

2. Tell us a bit more about yourself and how you stumbled across Idea Bounty and the Peperami brief.
I'm an ex - creative director (let go a few months ago) who was looking for something to do besides putting my portfolio together, a friend of mine Pete sent me the link to your page and it was just as the Peperami brief was posted. I thought it was a great chance to do something fun for a change.

3. What drew you to submitting an Idea? Was it the brand or the challenge presented?
It was a bit of both. As a creative the hardest thing to do is to come up with something totally original - luckily a lot of the hard work had already been done by the guys at Lowe's who created this fabulous character. It's not often you get the chance to work on such a great campaign so I jumped at the opportunity.

4. How long did you spend on your idea? Was it one of those ideas that just hits you or did you have it lurking and sloshing around your head for a while?
I think I worked on it on and off for a week. The first few ideas I had were OK but they lacked any real bite (excuse the pun)
so I sat on it for a few days until a better idea popped into my head.

5. By profession you are a creative director - with quite bit of experince - do you think this gave you a significant advantage? Would you mind telling us a bit more about what you have worked on in the past?
I don't think being a creative director helped because sometimes it's difficult to be objective about your own ideas but what did help was 20 years working in advertising and knowing what works and what does not. I'm sure this gave me an advantage over people who haven't worked in the business. Having said that they may also have an advantage because they might see things from a fresh perspective.

I was luckily enough to land my first job at Ogilvy's at the end of the eighties so I got to work on a lot of big brands. Things were really buzzing there at the time and I was shooting my first TV commercial 3 months after I arrived. I mainly worked on Woolwich building Soc, Wisk, Sunpat peanut butter, lucozade and Timeout magazine. My biggest job (apart from running my own agency) was as worldwide creative director for Wella haircare at BBDO in Germany

6. What was your process for tackling the brief? I know you used to work on a lot of below the line campaigns - was if significantly different working on an above the line idea?
It's only in the last few years that I've been working below the line, previous to that I was doing mostly TV commercials. You don't forget how to do these things, 30 seconds is still 30 seconds. Also the same methodology applies to both - you need an idea to sell!

7. The guys from Unilever really loved your TV spot idea from your "Little Ones" submission - do you think you will look at doing more above the line work after your win?
I hope so. I think film is my fist love - closely followed by radio.

8. We assume that you have no problem with Crowdsourcing, (since you submitted an idea) what do you think it will take for the concept of mass idea generation to become a standard thought for big brands?
Like I said before generating truly original ideas is hard work and I don't think it's something that everyone can do on a daily basis. I think the future for crowdsourcing is probably taking existing campaigns and opening them up for everyone to have a go. However, if there are still some old dogs like me around on the net who knows... Just one caveat here - it does take a good client to buy a good idea. You could have thousands of great ideas but if the client isn't really sure of what he or she wants it won't make any difference how many ideas you have.

9. It must be awesome to know you are going to see your ideas all over TV - How do you feel about this and any plans for the $5,000 you pocketed in the process?
Yes it's good to know that my work will be on the telly again (my Mum will be able to tell her friends what I've been doing). Since at the present time I'm unemployed I'll be spending the money on Christmas presents and a skiing holiday

10. Lastly if you were given an unlimited budget to develop a product or idea what would you create?
If I had an unlimited budget I'd do something for St Mungo's (homeless charity) as I used to work for them many moons ago and also. I'd try to raise some cash for MS research as a mate of mine was just diagnosed with it.