The Telly Awards receives entries from all over the world – Australia, Malaysia, The Netherlands, the UK and beyond! This means Telly Winners are creating work from every continent and our top accolade, The Gold Telly, is sitting on shelves and award cases all across the globe.
For this season, each month we will bring you a spotlight on a company that has won our highest award to answer the question: Where in the World is the Gold Telly!
First in this series, is file-sharing company and champion of creativity, WeTransfer. We sat down with Jamal Dauda, the Global Head of Music at WeTransfer.
Jamal joined WeTransfer in 2017 and has led projects with some of the world’s most interesting, innovative and influential artists, including Björk, John Legend, FKA twigs, King Krule, the Gorillaz, Lykke Li and Fleet Foxes. Jamal understands how musicians can help brands create meaningful relationships with people, and specializes in creating genuine collaborations that protect the artists’ integrity and authenticity. These partnerships – from short films to live shows – are hugely popular with the audience and highly-prized by the artists. He can be found on twitter @djkidlightning
What does your day to day look like in the midst of your creative process?
The most exciting part about my creative process is that it never really looks the same. There are these ever changing cycles that we move through. Sometimes it’s about being a sponge and just taking in as much art and culture as possible, as inspiration can come from anywhere. Other times, it’s about working collaboratively with artists and their teams to try mold a project and figure out how best to execute it. Usually, it’s some combination of all of the above.
Where do you/where does your team gather inspiration?
From everywhere and from each other! We’ve found ideas and inspiration in every corner of the world you could imagine. A great book, an inspiring film, an enlightening conversation. It’s also an amazing privilege to work with such a diverse team that have wide and expansive interests and tastes that allow us to learn from each other every day.
What does this gold Telly win around mean to the team?
We’re a team that finds a lot of genuine joy in getting to tell the stories we’re passionate about and bring some beautiful things into the world. Any recognition, acknowledgement, or award around that is a lovely added bonus.
Your winning content is surrounding creativity in others – how do you balance this with your own team’s creativity in producing the video?
We’ve always believed in letting the creatives we highlight lead the way. Our job as creatives is to augment and amplify their vision wherever possible. At its best, it’s a fairly egoless process and we find balance in being meaningful partners whenever possible and are there to help guide the flow of it all more than anything.
Who else in the US is creating work that inspires you?
In the brand world, I’m generally in awe of the work that Vans has been doing on the event and storytelling side of things. The emergence of Playboy as a really opinionated and inclusive voice in 2019 has been a real revelation and I’m excited to see where they head. Musically, I’m always really inspired by the ambition of artists such as Solange, Angel Olsen, and other American boundary pushers that aren’t willing to settle on their creativity and are always thinking about how to move things forward and present their work in new and exciting ways.
Have work that you are proud of? Enter today across Branded Content, Commercials & Marketing, Immersive & Mixed Reality, Non-Broadcast, Series/Shows/Segments, and Social Video.
