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“Great ideas sell themselves,” insists Sutherland.
“I don’t ever feel that I’m ’selling’ an idea, I simply
try and explain why we feel it’s the right approach.
You take clients on the journey of the thought
process and rationale.”
At an early concept stage, Baxter & Bailey
will always follow the process of discussing ideas
internally using rough sketches – but it’s rare that
those rough sketches will ever find their way in
front of a client. “At the sketch stage, ideas feel
embryonic and open to change. By looking at a
sketch, we’re scrutinising the idea, rather than the
execution,” reasons Baxter.
“But clients generally – and quite rightly – want
to see that the ideas we present have the flexibility
and strength to work for them,” he continues. “If
it’s a brand identity, we’re keen to present the idea
as broadly and comprehensively as possible. Canit stretch from a tiny animated GIF to a massive
billboard? If it can, it’s likely to have legs.”
Nevertheless, even the strongest ideas can
buckle under the strain of ‘design by committee’,
and Sutherland believes resolve and determination
are essential to keep the standard of output high.
“Good ideas need to adapt and flex, but it’s so
important to keep single-minded and strong to
keep the integrity of an idea,” he says. “And it’s the
responsibility of everyone involved to keep that
fundamental idea alive.”On rare occasions, adds Arnold, it becomes an
uphill struggle not to sell an idea to the client, but
to the rest of the agency internally. She gives the
example of 2010’s ‘rapping farmers’ spot for Yeo
Valley that she headed up while at BBH – which
spawned a hit single for fictional ‘farmer boyband’
The Churned the following year.
“The client said, ‘I run a real farm, and I want to
make organic produce available to the masses, not
middle-class Waitrose mums’,” she explains. “He
was actually prepared to lower prices to make it
more affordable.” Tired of people saying the brand
name incorrectly, he added that ‘Yo’ is the right
pronunciation – which soon set the cogs whirring.
“It may have been the corniest idea in the
world, but rapping farmers seemed suitably fun,
populist and mainstream,” explains Arnold. “We
won the business on it, but had to push it hard
within the agency as people thought it was too
cheesy.” It went on the win a D&AD Pencil for
Music in Advertising.
You know when you’ve landed on a great idea,
Arnold continues, and those are the ones where
you have to fight. “Some of my best work is where
I’ve seen an opportunity I hadn’t been briefed on,
and tried to do that,” she adds. “If it’s something
you haven’t been challenged with, you’re freer.”“IT’S NOT ABOUT HUGE
BUDGETS OR GENEROUS
TIMELINES, IT’S ABOUT
CLARITY OF THINKING”
MATT BAXTER CO-FOUNDER, BAXTER & BAILEYRight Baxter &
Bailey’s award-
winning identity for
Bog Eyed Books
came from an idea
scrawled on a
scrap of paper
while in a pub.
Below Rosie Arnold
had to battle with
the nay-sayers to
get Yeo Valley’s
rapping farmers
spot made.
SEPTEMBER 2019 IDEAS
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