Lipslick

Here it straight from the horse's chops as Hugh Todd, JWT's creative director, describes looking for lush lips and working with Rankin on the mouthwatering Baileys campaign

Lips.

To date I think we've seen over 10,000 pairs. Asian lips, Caucasian lips, Afro Caribbean lips. Fat lips, thin lips, biting lips, lips that gets us into trouble with lawyers, dry lips, moist lips (see lawyers). And finally, luscious lips, on poster sites around the world, for our new Baileys campaign.

It all began back in February last year. 'JWT invited to pitch for £40m Baileys account' said the headline. 'That'll be a few lost weekends for someone' said my fellow creative director Adam Scholes.

2 minutes later Russell Ramsey, our executive creative directive calls us in. 'You're on it'.

Many weeks (and weekends) later, we landed on lips, which seemed to fit the client brief of 'lusciousness'. They liked it. We showed them more. Famous lips (Angelina), kissing lips, rap video lips and the line 'Listen to your lips'. They liked that too. Add in a few charts, some boards, a nervous wait and the pitch was won.

Next up, research. All over the world. Different countries like different lips we found out. And different expressions. In America it was all closed mouth conservatism. While over in Mexico and China they were encouraging us to part the lips and even show a bit of tongue. "And can we have 4 versions of each?" A rough calculation meant we were scheduled to shoot 106 versions and we hadn't even spoken to a photographer yet. We trawled the Internet, scoured photographers' books and discussed ad nauseam what makes the perfect pair of lips, before we went into research. 4 weeks later the results came back. It was a massive thumbs up for lips. We were in. And so was Rankin.

Nearly half of the images used in the pitch and research came from his portfolio, so it seemed only decent to get him on board. We talked about girls and lips at length.

It's a tough job but someone had to do it. Tougher still was the casting. Hundreds of stunning women pouting, licking their lips and blowing us kisses for days on end. Legs to die for, boobs that sit up and say hello….all in vain. We only wanted them for the 2 plump bits of skin just below the nose.

Hair, make up and wardrobe did their thing - the edge of a summery straw hat, a dangly silver earring, Swarovski diamonds as lipstick. Because the images were going to be so big, the merest hint of an accessory allowed us to create a back-story behind each individual image.

Next up was Rankin, who worked his magic as only he can. And when the girls were flagging we had our very own in house fluffer: Adam, who managed to perk up the models with a refreshing Baileys over ice.

When the camera was being reloaded, Rankin would join us at the vast A2 digital screens to discuss the work. The full genius of the man started to become apparent as the shots flickered before our eyes, each amazing set of lips outdoing the last. We cropped and tagged deep into the night, going ever-so slightly mad, with our new found lip-language:

'Plump, rich'
'Fantastic symmetry'
'Great cupid's bow' (the little curve in the middle of the top lip)

From 8,000 images we cut it down to a final 24. It was brutal.

A bit of re-touching and re-cropping and the lips were finally up in China, America, Mexico, Australia and fifty-eight other countries.

It's done.

I wander home relieved. The Evening Standard seller starts with the usual footy banter - yet tonight I am mute - all I can think of are his thin and mean lips. Next, I'm back home having a shave and can't quite believe how much bigger my bottom lip is compared to my top. I flick on the TV - Jamie Oliver's cupid's bow is enormous. I tell my wife. She says I need to lay down / talk to a therapist / start working on another brand / move the campaign on.

Her lips are moving but I can't hear a thing.