The Work That Made Me: Jeremy Willmott
Jeremy Willmott is an award-winning, London born, creative director, who is passionate about creating meaningful change in the world. His latest project, , is a charter for giving better creative feedback and was created in response to the negativity seen in online comments, anecdotes from peers and overheard in meetings.
He made the move to Sydney in 2016 after a solid ten years making his mark at various agencies such as the legendary Lean Mean Fighting Machine and at Trevor Beatty鈥檚 agency, BMB. After a stint of freelancing in Sydney he settled into a five year tenure at The Hallway where he honed his craft and made the move to creative director. There he worked on local and global brands the likes of ANZ bank and Google.
During lockdown he created an initiative called Soul Sessions that aimed to give an audience back to struggling stage actors via live paid online performances.
Since making the move to the B Corp agency Paper Moose he has been instrumental in introducing a Buy One Give One scheme to the agency. The scheme allows paying clients to have impact carried out on their behalf via money set aside to help organisations working to decarbonise the planet. To date the scheme has helped raise $80M in seed capital funding for fledgling biotech companies.
天美棋牌> The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me鈥
Jeremy> I grew up in the UK in the 80s so my brain is full of jingles. They randomly pop into my brain at inopportune moments at which point I find them on YouTube and send them to my sister so we can reminisce. It鈥檚 a cluttered mess up there鈥
鈥淎 finger of fudge is just enough to give your kids a treat鈥 in one corner.
鈥淚f you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our Club鈥 in another.
But there was one obscure ad for Lloyds bank that鈥檚 so fiendishly clever I can still remember the phone number to this day. It鈥檚 0800 710 723.
How do I remember this and no other phone number except my own? Well because they created a story about a princess called Atundra who needed saving from a two headed dragon by a prince. He cried 鈥淥h鈥 (0), 鈥淎tundra鈥 (800) and then proceeded to cut the dragon鈥檚 heads off鈥 鈥淪ever One, Oh, Sever Two鈥. Free鈥 (710 723). Genius.
天美棋牌> The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry鈥
Jeremy> I was running a restaurant in Bermuda when 'Subservient Chicken' came out in 2004. It blew my mind like it did (I鈥檓 sure) for everyone else that saw it at the time. I realised that I needed a change from hospitality and campaigns like this definitely influenced my career choices. I retrained as a Flash designer and moved back to London where I snuck into the industry via the design department with no formal education in advertising.
'Subservient Chicken' was hugely influential at the time. No one had done anything like it before and it really pushed the technology of the time to its limits (YouTube launched a year later!). The idea lived on for years in people鈥檚 minds and I even got to pay homage (aka copy it) for Microsoft in a campaign called 'Free Your Buddy', a kind of online escape room for a Microsoft buddy character.
天美棋牌>The creative work (film/album/game/ad/album/book/poem etc) that I keep revisiting鈥
Jeremy> I鈥檓 a bit of a film nerd so I鈥檓 forever revisiting old movies and especially ones I loved as a child. I recently got to see '' again on the big screen and was mesmerised by the visual storytelling of the opening scene, a skilful one-shot that gives you the perfect amount of exposition to set up the story.
We pan across a wall of various ticking clocks; we stop briefly on a newspaper article about a burnt down mansion; we see framed pictures of Thomas Eddison, Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein; a coffee machine, missing its jug, spurts hot water onto a sizzling hot plate; a news story on TV lets us know that some plutonium has been stolen; a toaster keeps burning the toast; a robot arm fills a dog bowl that鈥檚 overflowing with dog food (the dog bowl reads 鈥楨instein鈥); we see a kid鈥檚 feet as the door opens and they call out 鈥淗ey Doc, anybody home?鈥 before replacing the key under the mat and kicking their skateboard under a bench where a yellow box with a sticker that reads 鈥楶lutonium. Handle with care.鈥 lies.
We get asked all the time to use VO or write dialogue to explain what鈥檚 going on in our ads so it鈥檚 good to remind ourselves that there鈥檚 so much more to storytelling than just saying what鈥檚 happening. If you love this too it鈥檚 worth checking out Robert Zemeckis鈥 other genius opening sequence and the first ten minutes or so of 鈥樷欌 comedy gold.
天美棋牌> My first professional project鈥
Jeremy> I was busting with pride working on my first commercial project in London. Somehow they let me loose on the Canon account and had me build my very first set of Flash banners for them.
The concept was that if you wait the perfect shot will reveal itself. In one banner users could control time with a slider to go from day to night to reveal a gorgeous blue hour photo moment. In the other banner you waited until the rain had stopped before taking the perfect reflection photo in a puddle. We squeezed so much out of 30 kb in those days and I鈥檓 still incredibly proud of that work to this day.
天美棋牌> The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform鈥) that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*鈥
Jeremy> I get so incredibly irked seeing fossil fuel advertising on my TV and in billboards around the city. I would never work on something that is so instrumental in damaging our environment. At Paper Moose, we have an ethical charter that means I鈥檒l never have to worry about working on accounts like that, but more so we鈥檙e also working with organisations who are actively trying to shut down fossil fuel advertising in Australia at the federal level, because enough is enough.
天美棋牌> The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform鈥) that still makes me jealous鈥
Jeremy> I remember when I saw the Sony Bravia Bouncing Balls ad for the first time that I truly fathomed what people meant when they talked about 鈥榗raft鈥. I could watch this ad over and over. It鈥檚 such a simple idea that perfectly expresses the line 鈥楥olor like no other鈥. And when they followed this up with Paint, I reckon every ad human in the world had a pang of jealousy like me
天美棋牌> The creative project that changed my career鈥
Jeremy> I was working as a senior interactive designer on the Mercedes Benz account which meant we also got to work on their Smart car brand. The agency put an open brief out to the agency and I jumped at the chance. I teamed myself up with one of the gun creative developers and we conceived of an app that would help Smart car drivers .
The car can only carry two people so it鈥檚 the perfect couple's car, and this app was a way for them to have a random day out. It was a nightmare to make back then in 2011 but the client loved it and so did I because it marked a serious step change for me. I had gotten a taste for what being a creative meant and I wanted more.
天美棋牌> The work that I鈥檓 proudest of鈥
Jeremy> Gosh there鈥檚 definitely a few but the one that really stands out is when Norman Cook a.k.a. Fatboy Slim said yes to us using 鈥溾 in a reworked version of the song to sell solar financing for a company called Brighte. Yep you got it鈥 鈥溾.
天美棋牌> I was involved in this and it makes me cringe鈥
Jeremy> In my London advertising days I volunteered in the marketing team at GMFA (Gay Men Fighting Aids) and we created some really important work targeting the UK queer community with safe sex messages. I鈥檓 really proud of 99% of the work we put out but there is one campaign we did that makes me cringe.
The concept revolved around the idea of a physical HIV detector that you could whip out to check if someone was HIV+ before sleeping with them. Of course budgets were non-existent but still I think we could鈥檝e done slightly better than the colander, ski mask and stack of wires that we came up with. It was giving off serious 80s Doctor Who vibes鈥hudders.
天美棋牌> The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most鈥
Jeremy> We recently launched a new campaign for Australian Ethical featuring epic wildlife photography and the line 鈥榃hen you prosper, we all thrive鈥 and I gotta say seeing that out in the wild was something special. While most brands in this space use fear marketing with a doom and gloom message we led with optimism and hope and that鈥檚 something I reckon we can all do with a bit more of right now.
