Wunderman Thompson’s Iain Macmillan on the Secrets to Being “Idea-Brave”

Iain Macmillan, the newly appointed creative director at Wunderman Thompson Australia, caught up with LBB’s Tom Loudon to share his journey to the agency and the inspiration behind his role.

With a passion for visual storytelling and a background working with renowned brands, including Google, Pedigree, Anchor Milk, and Mountain Dew, Iain discusses his creative strategies and the importance of engaging and impactful ideas.

He looks forward to collaborating with Stephanie Gwee, the Melbourne office's creative lead and creative director. Here, he shares his excitement for the potential of Wunderman Thompson to produce fantastic work - and for his own collaboration with Stephanie Gwee.

LBB> What drew you to Wunderman Thompson Australia, and the creative director role?

Iain> Wunderman Thompson, is hungry, ambitious, and fearless, which is precisely what you want in an agency. It has the soul of an indie mixed with the capabilities of a global network, which was interesting to me. After chatting with Stephanie and Joao, I felt the team had the same goals and wanted to make a difference and the type of work I wanted to create. I’m a bit of a reluctant CD in that respect. I’ve never considered myself a natural leader, more ‘this is my take, what do you think?’. 

But it was the next step in my career, and a chance to put all that other mentors and leaders have imparted to me into practice. And they both thought I was up for it, so here I am. I enjoy helping younger creatives grow into their own and being a CD at Wunderman Thompson helps me with this personal purpose. 

LBB> Have you always been creative, even as a child?

Iain> I guess. I’ve always liked graphic design and visual storytelling. Being dyslexic, I found listening to stories and creating visuals in my head enjoyable as a kid. So, I guess I’ve just carried it on from there. My art teacher said I’d be pretty good at this type of work – so shout out, Mr Sharpe. 

LBB> Can you share some insights into your experience working with brands like Google, Pedigree, Anchor Milk, and Mountain Dew? What creative strategies did you employ for these brands?

Iain> I wouldn’t say I employed strategies so much. More, what they all had in common was that they were all great marketers who had ambition and wanted to be and say something interesting and different to their audience. They were confident in their brand and what they stand for, so that went a long way for me to be given the freedom to produce work that was fresh and different, and ideas that people wanted to engage with. 

LBB> How do you plan to contribute to the creative leadership of the Melbourne office and collaborate with Stephanie Gwee?

Iain> The creative leadership in Melbourne is already great. Super smart, nice, with an amazing depth of knowledge across so many areas, so being asked to be a part of that is pretty humbling in itself. So, I’m not sure what I’m going to contribute yet, apart from maybe bringing the snacks to meetings?

Bizarrely, we both have similar creative backgrounds. Steph coming from BBH Singapore, and me being brought up, as it were, under the mentoring of Nick Worthington and Rob Jack who are still considered BBH legends. So we have those fundamentals and guiding principles that connect us and keep us honest about what we’re doing. Our skill sets also complement each other really well. I am a bit shyer, so I’m more on the production side of things where she is very strategic and thinky.  

LBB> What excites you the most about the potential of Wunderman Thompson and the opportunities it offers for creating fantastic work?

Iain> They have a breadth of capability across all aspects of what a client needs, which as a creative means I have a lot of toys to play with. We get to inject creative bravery in everything from employee experience, customer experience, technology/ platform solutions, all the way to brand communications. So that’s fun. Also, ambition and fearlessness. It’s not just making average, or fine, it’s creating work with purpose, that is different, so real commercial creativity. Ideas that actually make a measurable impact. 

LBB> With your experience across various agencies, what key lessons or skills do you bring to your new role as creative director?

Iain> Say please and thank you, always. I’ve been lucky to have some great mentors along the way, so hopefully I’m passing on the lessons I had learnt from them. Keeping it simple. And I guess being idea-brave. We can question and challenge the norms. But in the end, it really just comes down to having a simple truth, told well.