The Platinum Egg 1998: Staffan Forsman.
Staffan Forsman begins life in Hisingen in Gothenburg, but when he is seven, the family moves to a newly built neighbourhood of single-family houses. There, at school, he meets his new best friend, Sven-Olof Bodenfors. The two are in the same class for the first nine years of school. As a child, Staffan is constantly drawing, but after completing his military service, he picks up a few odd jobs but is not really sure what to commit to.... One day, he finds a travel brochure from Vingresors Club 33 and thinks it’s the coolest thing he’s ever seen. Staffan realizes that there must be people who make things like this for a living, and he applies for a job as a graphic artist at all the advertising agencies in Gothenburg. Eventually, one agency hires him as a messenger, with the promise that he will be able to help out in the studio within half a year or so. And thus a legendary advertising career begins. In 1978, Staffan founds Collin & Forsman with copywriter Lasse Collin. Award-winning campaigns for shoes and beds stream forth from the little Gothenburg agency. A job for Tor Line, a shipping company, wins Staffan his first Golden Egg. In the mid-1980s, Staffan and his boyhood friend Sven-Olof decide to start Forsman & Bodenfors. Art director Mikko Timonen is also on the team from the beginning. They have their own special approach to competing with the Stockholm establishment: they do no hourly billing, instead quoting a fixed price for the jobs, then working day and night until they are done. They let all the employees take part, spreading sketches out on the floor so everybody can say what they think. For many years, Forsman & Bodenfors is Sweden’s most successful agency, competing with the best in the world. Over the course of several decades, Staffan wins every prize it is possible to win for campaigns for clients like Volvo, Arla, the Salvation Army, Västtrafik and Göteborgs-Posten.