The Platinum Egg 1979: Jan Cederquist.
It’s 1980. When the Golden Egg Gala goes off in Stockholm, Jan Cederquist roars through the copywriting category like whirlwind, taking home the only Golden Egg and two of five Silver Eggs. Jury member Lasse Collin hails his brilliance in the Golden Egg Book, regretting only that Jan “Dalai” Cederquist couldn’t make it to the party – after all, as everybody knew, he had already departed for Tibet. Nobody doubted what he wrote.... Speaking of the Himalayas, Jan was born in the picturesque little town of Hjo in 1936. His father was a bookseller and wrote articles and columns in the local papers. Jan was eager to explore the world from a young age, and manoeuvred his way into various jobs with airlines in Miami and Bermuda. By 1964, we once again find him back in Sweden, as an “advertising editor” at Gumaelius in Gothenburg, one of the biggest agencies in the country. With very little success, he tries to impress upon the agency’s management the greatness of Doyle Dane Bernbach’s advertisements for Volkswagen, which he has torn out of American magazines. Eventually he is recruited to a more understanding agency, Arbman in Stockholm, the creative revolution’s guiding light in Sweden, with titans like Leon Nordin and Alf Mork. There he meets Lars Hall, and in 1973 they found Hall & Cederquist – whereupon the creative revolution in Sweden turns into a creative eruption. Lars Hall’s art direction is a dynamic counterpoint to Jan’s copy, with its clever headlines, simplicity of language and surprising take-home twists. Just six years after starting the agency, both are awarded Platinum Eggs.
After the Platinum Egg: Jan continues to create unforgettable copy during the first half of the 80s. Lars Hall opens an H&C branch in New York. The branch burns through money and never quite takes wing. The CEO in Stockholm steps down and Jan steps up. The agency on Kaptensgatan ascends to the heavens. Jan buys up smaller agencies with talented creatives and flies in management philosophers like Peter Koestenbaum and Edward de Bono to train the staff. The New York branch is shuttered. Hall & Cederquist is sold to Young & Rubicam. During this period, Jan’s interest in esoterica intensifies, and he trains as a gestalt therapist. In 1997, his memoir “Reclown” is published. There is no mention of any trip to Tibet. Jan dies in 2009.