'Coolant Green': Kenneth Choong Wins The WWF Brief

How do you make being green and living a sustainable lifestyle "cool"? Not an easy question at all, but an important one to ask and answer. WWF bravely put this question out there and man was the response something.

After WWF spent a good few days debating your submissions (so many good ideas!) a winner was finally picked. So, our congratulations and the $1,500 Bounty go to Kenneth Choong from Singapore for his outstanding idea titled: "This Ones For You."

Well done Kenneth - I hope you have a really good time spending that cash (let’s hope it’s on something green) and we are all looking forward to seeing your campaign rolled out! Read on for an interview with Kenneth.

1. We usually kick these interviews off by asking what was going through your head when you realised you had won - were you shocked? Surprised?

All of the above... Then a warm, caramelly feeling erupted in my chest.

2. When I spoke to you on the phone you mentioned that you knew about Idea Bounty for a while but never submitted an idea. Why did you decide to go for the WWF brief? Was it the brand or the challenge presented?

I’d never thought of myself as someone who’d join a competition, spend all that time researching and thinking and writing it up, then setting myself up for disappointment at the end of the whole thing.

That is, until I won a random brief a few weeks ago, and that gave me the kick in the pants I needed to tackle the WWF one.

3. You work as a copywriter for Leo Burnett Singapore - do you think your 6 years of experience in the industry gave you an edge when it came to coming up with a wining idea?

Someone with oversized glasses once said that it takes 10,000 hours to get any good at anything. Experience does help.

4. 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?

It’s already happening within larger agency networks but to a highly limited extent, mostly because of all the nightmarish red tape and even more hellish politics. If I were to play crystal ball gazer I’d say it’s going take a very long while before agencies have the stomach for immense round tables, and for big brands to launch campaigns without a multimillion dollar safety net.

5. 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?

Reading the brief, five minutes. Researching it, 15 minutes. Thinking with pen and paper, half an hour. Thinking downstairs at the corner coffee shop with said pen and paper, half an hour. Going upstairs and typing it out, another half an hour.

For me, the heavenly bodies of mood, caffeine, and atmosphere have to be aligned for things upstairs to click.

6. In the past you have worked on brands like Heineken, Nokia, BAT and Visa - what was it like coming up with an idea for WWF?

Different clients, different target audiences, different messages, but they’re all about the same thing. Making people look up from whatever they’re doing, and going, “Whoa.” At least for the next 30 seconds.

7. Your idea "This Ones for You" was very simple, but outstandingly brilliant - do you think that people have a tendency to make things too complicated? Is simple better?

The answer is: simplicity is preferable for most things, not just briefs, because, well, they’re easier on the brain. Yours, your client’s and your audience’s.

But, personally speaking, I loathe simplicity. The baroque – now that, I adore. The overly embellished, the florid ornaments, gesture for the sake of gesture – frou frou.

8. You mentioned that you are interested in ecology and evolution. What do you think is the single biggest reason humans as a collective whole have not stepped up to sorting out our environmental problems?

I concentrated on molecular biology in university. And while ecology and evolution were my biggest interests, I don’t think that they lend me any special insight into human behaviour that you can’t get anywhere else.

Still, I can’t help myself from attempting a vague answer to a very complex question. As I see it, the problems are attitudinal: apathy, ignorance, laziness, stupidity and greed. In that order.

9. You spend a lot of time working with brands. Do you think it’s harder for brands like WWF and Greenpeace to make an impact with their messaging when they have to fight for a share of voice with some many other brands.

But WWF and friends aren’t competing in the same space as that of other brands, like say, BMW. The real challenge for them is how to make people listen when they’re quite tired of not for profits standing on soapboxes, threatening doom and gloom, fire and brimstone, and other binounal phrases. This brief shows that not for profits are trying other messaging avenues, and that’s a good way to go in my opinion.

10. It must be awesome to know your idea is going to be rolled out by WWF - How do you feel about this and any plans for the $1,500 you pocketed in the process?

Pay some bills!