The Platinum Egg 2009: Anders Wester.
Anders Wester grew up in Falkenberg, the son of teachers, and was just 17 years old when he started at Ted Bates in Helsingborg. At Arbman in Malmö, he developed under the tutelage of greats like John Melin and Kurt Lundkvist. There he worked with the Swedish cassette brand Track, founded in 1981 to compete with Japanese brands like Maxell and TDK.... (The advertising maintained a higher quality level than Track.) He flew in the top-paid photo model of the era, Isabella Rossellini, to be shot by Janne Bengtsson for the jewellery retailer Guldkedjan (alas the budget dried up, and barely enough was left over to run the ads). Anders also made his presence felt at Hall & Cederquist. He helped Lars Hall with the New York branch, but both ended up coming back home in 1988. When Young & Rubicam bought H&C the following year, Anders Wester became CEO. As an art director, he handled two tabloid newspaper clients, first Expressen and later Aftonbladet, and eventually their major client Ericsson. He helped his friend, financier Robert Weil, with Proventus’ annual reports and the Jewish Theatre in Stockholm. He was totally committed to every job, with aesthetic sensibilities that ranged from Bauhaus to burlesque. Eventually he became Y&R’s Chief Creative Officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, again based in New York, until he came back to Sweden in 2003 and founded Voice – The Brand Liberation Company. Brands had been kidnapped by consultants! Big international networks were making off with both the brands and the money! Copywriter Mattias Jersild worked at Voice, and in a eulogy for Anders written after he passed away in 2018, he summed up his personality respectfully and honestly: “Anders was not always angry. Many thought he was, but I suspect they confused that with what was actually – behind that dogged, poison-dripping, southern Swedish voice – was his competitive spirit. He always wanted to be the best, and often he succeeded.” He succeeded so well that he was elected to the Platinum Academy. There he took on the role of bolstering the Academy’s original mission of “inspiring and promoting quality in Swedish advertising, design and communications”. The Platinum Academy’s website would never have come online without the efforts of Anders Wester.