UNIVERSITY GRADUATES ENTICED TO THE JWT WOMB

JWT Australia is running a graduate competition called The Womb. Open to anyone in their final year of tertiary study, there will be two winners – one in Sydney, one in Melbourne – and the prize is a nine month long paid position at JWT.

The initiative is designed to seek out and cultivate creative-minded students. The website, www.jwtwomb.com, is now live and students can register and find out more information about the process.

The JWT Womb is the brainchild of Amy Smith, CEO of JWT Australia and New Zealand, and is part of her drive to turn the agency once considered the ‘university of advertising’ into the University of Magic and Logic. Amy has long been an advocate for nurturing new talent in the industry and is championing the JWT Womb as a way of unearthing more of that talent.

The process will involve a live brief given by one of the agency’s biggest clients, Ford Australia.

“We want to see how the candidates are able to deal with some of the same challenges we face,” Smith said.

“That’s why we’re asking them to work on a live brief. The results will be judged internally and then the finalists will have to present to a board of judges which will include senior JWT and Ford staff.”

Applicants will be asked to produce a creative communications campaign, based on a robust strategic platform. They will also be invited to attend workshops where they will be advised on what the judges will be looking for when assessing the work.

“It doesn’t matter where you think your talents lie – be they creative or strategic, account service or production – the Womb will let you showcase your strengths and expose you to all aspects of the way an agency works,” Smith said.

The project has the support of universities around Australia and places for the information seminars are filling quickly.

The website features one of the designers of the program, Paul Johnston. He is curled up in the foetal position, working on his laptop. When you launch the site, you can hear the voice of his ‘Mother’ talking. The two interact, with the ‘baby’ kicking Mother at one stage and Mother directing him to do things. In -utero, our ‘baby’ talks on the phone, bats away an alarm clock and drinks a cup of coffee.

The JWT Womb also has a presence on Facebook, with a link from the Womb website. Here people can view behind the scenes footage from the making of the website and the poster shoots (volunteers, Paul Johnston and Alice Mason were covered in the thickener used for Four’n’Twenty meat pies to recreate that in-utero ‘goo’ look), meet other applicants, get the latest updates on the program from the JWT team and perhaps even garner some inside information…

Says Smith: “A huge bunch of people worked tirelessly, both in and out of office hours, to make this project happen. They were: Holly Matchett, Graham Alvarez, Susan Hinton, Paul Johnston, David Hakkennes, Leo Ibrahim, Nick Weller, Phil van Bruchem, Michael Ball, Alice Mason and Justine Kubale.”

The poster has gone up around university campuses.