Vale awarded creative John Bailey, co-creator of some of Australia’s most memorable campaigns

Many in the ad industry in the UK, Australia and Asia will be saddened to hear of the passing of awarded creative John Bailey, who has died in Singapore.

After graduating from Reigate School of Art&Design in 1973 with a BA, Advertising and Design, John Bailey started his advertising career in London as an art director before moving to Sydney in 1981.

Bailey made his mark at several top Sydney agencies during the 80s. At Clemenger he won an AWARD Silver Pencil for IBM and two Silver Pencils for Sydney County Council as well as awarded work for Birds Eye.

At Saatchi & Saatchi he produced award-winning work for Crown Corning, at FCB he won an AWARD Silver Pencil for Steinlager and created awarded work for Spray n’Wipe, and at Leo Burnett he created award-winning work for Dulux.

In 1989 Bailey joined DMB&B as creative director, departing two years later for a three year ECD stint at JWT Indonesia.

In 1994 he returned to Clemenger Sydney, where he stayed until 2000, before starting his own Sydney-based agency Bailey Daddo Douglas Lees with partners Andrew Douglas, Peter Daddo and Mark Lees, which had a six year run.

In 2006 Bailey returned to Indonesia, taking the ECD role at McCann-Erickson, In a two year period Bailey took the agency from obscurity to the second most awarded agency in both major local award shows.

After ECD stints at DDB and Ogilvy RedWorks in Indonesia Bailey returned to DDB Indonesia in 2011 as President Direct and ECD.

After a decade at DDB, in 2021 Bailey started his own agency Bailey Capel, based in Jakarta.

Bailey, who became a copywriter in the late 80s, co-created some of Australia’s most memorable and successful campaigns, such as “Dougie the Delivery Boy” for Pizza Hut, the long-running Spray n’Wipe commercial and the Sultana Bran “Don’t tell them it’s healthy and they’ll eat it by the boxful” campaign.

He firmly believed that good work builds brands, creates demand, generates sales or better still, all three. Says Bailey a few years back: “No matter how good we believe our work is if it doesn’t produce a ROI for a client it can’t possibly be good. After all, that’s what we’re paid to do.”

During his career he won many awards including several Cannes Lions, numerous Clio’s (including Best of Show and Clio Hall of Fame) and several AWARD Silver Pencils.

Some of Bailey’s awarded work in the 80s included Crown Corning (Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney), Silver Pencil awarded IBM and Sydney County Council (Clemenger Sydney), Spray n’Wipe and Silver Pencil awarded Steinlager (FCB Sydney) and Dulux (Leo Burnett Sydney).