It was 1995 when somebody first suggested placing a little advertisement on the internet, and not just anywhere there happened to be some empty space, but somewhere where the right people would see it. A minor thing, one might think, but a tiny snowball of digital marketing started rolling at this point, and in the decades since, it has split into more snowballs that have grown big as houses, both advancing creativity and sometimes rolling over it.

It would take a while longer before any of this showed up in Swedish advertising. The web agencies that open in the mid-90s focus primarily on helping companies simply to exist on the internet. They do not have particularly sophisticated tools at their disposal, but they are pioneers.

The advertising agencies keep rolling along with their promotional films and adverts. Creative new approaches are being dreamed up elsewhere, such as Paradiset and its client Diesel, who become world-famous for a striking a brand new tone. In 1997, an ”Internet Advertising” category is added to the Golden Eggs, but the jury can’t find anything worthy of the award.

In 2000, the Romson ad agency and the web agency Farfar win a Golden Egg for a campaign website for Fjällfil, a brand of cultured milk, where you could create your own musical piece with the help of a mooing cow. When you were done composing, you could save the result in an email and send it to a friend. For this effort, the team also bestrides the stage at Cannes, where they are awarded a Grand Prix.

Right around this time, shortly after comic characters like Lotto’s Åke, ICA’s Stig and the Ipren man make their entrée into Swedish TV advertising, digital creativity begins to come to life in the advertising industry. Suddenly, there are brilliant creatives who know how to produce advertising for the internet. Some are working at web agencies, others at ad agencies.

And their creativity is urgently needed, for during this period, a flood of unbearable sewage is pouring out of our screens. “Surfing the net” means dodging through a minefield of unwelcome pop-up ads. Digital advertising consists largely of irksome flashing banners and unwanted ”sidebars” and ”takeovers”.

In 2006, Forsman & Bodenfors wins a Golden Egg for a digital campaign for IKEA where you can move through six different kitchens with 360° degree views, with the kitchens linked so you can view them one after the other, like a magic trick. Each kitchen has its own musical theme, further heightening the experience. This campaign and several others by the same agency pull in so many awards that Forsman & Bodenfors is named Digital Agency of the Year at Cannes. This contributes to a perception, at the time, that Sweden is at the leading edge of global digital communications.

In 2008, the Golden Eggs’ ”Internet Advertising” category is renamed ”Interactive”. The change is reflected in the kinds of ideas selected. Jung von Matt wins a Golden Egg in 2011 for a ”Mini Getaway” for Volkswagen, in which anybody with an iPhone can search for a virtual VW Mini in Stockholm using an app. If you get close enough, you can grab the car, but then you have to get away from everybody else who is trying to grab it back. Whoever who has the virtual Mini on their telephone when the game is over wins a Mini Countryman.

Eventually, the category’s name changes again to ”Digital”.

One thing that is not reflected in the advertising industry’s most prestigious prizes is the trend towards ever more accurate targeting. With the aid of data, you can place a message right in front of the nose of exactly the right person at the right time.

Beside the fact that it is becoming increasingly obvious to people that they have completely lost control of their online integrity, this trend is leading many advertisers to forget the value of creativity. Why go to the trouble of sparking the interest of possible customers when you can achieve short-term results that are at least as good by picking them off with a laser sight?

However, creatively minded people are still using every new tool to find their way to something good and innovative. This period of advertising history is thus going to end up being as radical a change as the Creative Revolution. Being a copywriter in 1995 was a completely different job from being a copywriter in 2015. There are so many more possibilities. Young digital natives have become a hot property, and have completely changed the dynamic of life at the agencies, making it a lot more fun. If you stick to your belief in the power of a strong idea, you will always be right in the end, just as it has always been in the past.