Interview: BMW Winner Gary Willmott

 Idea Bounty keeps surprising us in really nice ways. One of those nice surprises has been the amount of small and start up creative agencies getting involced and submitting briefs. Gary Willmott, our BMW winner, is the founder of one of these Agencies and we picked his brain a bit. Enjoy

Gary (centre) and the Urbian team

For the record, when I called you to tell you were the winner, did you scream like a deranged girl?
Yeah, completely!! It's not often you win 3k in Dollars! Which is pretty neat with South Africa's exchange rate. You must hear me when I have a 'penny drop' moment, it gets wild!

You entered on behalf of your agency Urbian. Tell us a bit about the agency and what your role is.
We are a team of specialists (think Ocean's 11) which I formed in 2005 with my partner Anton Moulder. We do motion and interactive in all its hues and shades, but combining the two is what makes us tick! We research and develop things all the time. We eat food almost every time we meet and some of us have grown moustaches. The jingle sums it all up.

Urbian Sing-a-long from urbian on Vimeo.

 
What made you decide to enter Idea Bounty? What’s the Idea Bounty attraction?
My brain just ticks continuously, seriously! Even when I am on holiday far away up the coast with the wife and kids, I will just be thinking of crazy ideas of how to make things better or smarter. When I came across the Idea Bounty site itself, I first thought, “Why didn't I think of that! Damn!” I get those often.

The attraction is a combination of a global challenge and the cash. The cash is a decent amount for a good idea, especially when you have to part with your Idea and never use it again :(

I’ve checked out your portfolio and you guys do awesome work and seem pretty busy. What are you working on right now and can you share some sneak peeks?

We are in the middle of launching some pretty decent projects; one is an online multi-user social world:

the other is a website for the Glade Festival in the UK, that works off an interactive map that changes according to the time of day.

We're also working on a multi-lingual global brand campaign site, launching first in Canada, but for now we can't say more about this one (nudge nudge wink wink)...

These should launch soon, follow our twitter feed or site for updates

As someone who pretty much spends his life working with the internet what are your thoughts on brands getting noticed and staying noticed online.

Good question! 2 years ago I grew a moustache, and all my friends loved it, but my wife hated it. So I grew it out into a beard, and she loves it!
Don't build a brand the same way as everyone else, check who your target market is and find out what they actually want. If you can do it smart, simple, to the point, whilst differentiating yourself from competitors you can't go wrong. 

What was your process for tackling the brief and what do you think gave you the advantage ?
I couldn't resist an online campaign looking at a target market like that of BMW's. I started off by scrapping the whole idea of building a short term, typical campaign site, and rather based my idea around an online social tool that users would use on a continual basis, and would want to involve their friends in.

I kept saying to myself that this is too risky, they won't get it(clients never do - they always want to stick to the safe ideas that everyone else is doing). I thought stuff it, if they don't bite, I will take it to Mercedes Benz ;)  

I guess the technical experience did have a part to play, and the risk paid off.

If you had to have 5 website addresses tattooed on your bum what would you choose for street cred ?
www.thefwa.com

http://www.cherryflava.com
http://springwise.com

Any plans for the $3000?

Been dreaming of taking the family up on a snowboarding trip to Europe next year, this is going to help make that dream more of a reality.

If you had to make one change to http://www.britneyspears.com/ what would it be ?
Would re-direct to http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk. Sorry Britney! Sigur, if you hear this, please come to Cape Town!!