MiWay Winner Interview - Jaco Van Zyl

Last year we launched a brief for South African short-term insurance company MiWay, the number of submissions we received was phenomenal which meant sorting through them was quite a task. Over all it was amazing how many of you came up with Ideas that revolved around games and social media… even more interesting was how many of you managed to propose such a variety of different mechanics and game play devices. Top notch work guys. So without any more waffling I would like to congratulate Jaco Van Zyl for scooping the Bounty on this one, he beat out 10 other Ideas that made the final short list… Well done Jaco! 

A big congratulation must also go out to the creatives who produced the top 20 shortlisted Ideas. You have all managed to pick up either a Silver or Bonze Award. Check out our MiWay Top 20 for more on these Awards! We also have an great little interview with our winner Jaco below. Congratulations again Jaco!

First and foremost, congratulations on having your idea selected, well worth the $3000 it picked up. I know you have submitted Idea to some of our past briefs, did you think you had the winning Idea this time?

I was confident that my idea would stand a good chance in the competition, but not to actually win it.  There are some pretty amazing creative minds out there.  

So ja, I was shocked to have won it.

Tell us a bit more about yourself and how you stumbled across Idea Bounty and the MiWay brief. 

I’m a Cape Tonian, born and bred. A big sports fan! Avid Western Province and Stormer Supporter (Proooovince!).  I’ve always loved the whole sports marketing arena which lead me to one of the Idea Bounty briefs a while back. A good friend of mine told me about the SAB Castle World Cup Brief, so we collaborated and submitted an idea which was really fun. I have always dreamed of sitting down and creating marketing magic for a well-known SA brand.

What drew you to submitting an Idea? Was it the brand or the challenge presented?

To be honest, I‘ve had the idea for a while now (one of many, haha jokes) and was waiting for the perfect opportunity to come along.  When I saw the brief, I had a gut feeling that it would suite the profile faultlessly.

So I know you work in the luxury events and promotions industry . Can you tell us a bit more about what you do for a living and your favourite event you have worked on so far?

I’m currently employed by a dynamic marketing and events company called Living Your Brand. We focus on promoting luxurious brands by hosting lavish events to attract the ideal target markets.  We are also the proud producers of the Integrated Marketing Communications Conference.  We are now working on our sequel event to be held in Johannesburg in May 2011. For those who are interested can read more on www.imcc.co.za

What is the project that you have been creatively involved with in the past that you are most proud about? 

I have worked on some pretty amazing brands and events, but the one event that is the dearest to me is our marketing conference.  The event was conceptualised by Daniel Marcus (Managing Partner of Living Your Brand) and myself.  We were very proud of our event last year and the Jozi event promises to be even bigger.

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?

Well it just makes perfectly good sense, an idea for the people from the people.  Any communication strategy should start off with thorough market research which would incorporate talking to ‘the people’.  Cast away all that self referencing criteria (that marketers love to hold onto) and actually listen to what the people want.  And crowd sourcing the way you guys are doing it, pure brilliance.  Keep it up!

If I had to tell you had an unlimited budget to work on any project you wanted - what would you do? 

With that much money I would build more schools and universities.  Everyone should be entitled to a comprehensive education.

Lastly -  if we gave you an unlimited budget to put together a team of people to save the worlds problems, who would you hire?

Easy....

Superman, the Muscle, to beat the bad guys.

Tony Stark (aka IronMan), the Techie, to create an alternative power source.

Jamie Oliver, to make food for everyone.

And Lastly, Madiba, to be the spokesperson and leader of the team.