About - Forsman & Bodenfors

How we work

We’re a global creative collective, founded in Sweden in 1986. We believe in the power of ideas that get remembered, build fame and shift culture. Ideas that have a positive impact on our clients’ businesses, and on society. Today, we are 380 people, working in 8 offices, in 6 countries, on 3 continents, with 100+ Cannes Lions between us. World-class creativity and boutique craft are our core. We don’t do everything. But we can do anything.

We put creative minds to  business problems, to help ambitious brands grow.

The Only Boss is the Task Itself

What is the problem? Identifying the real problem, the thing that stands in the way of the brand and business thriving is our starting point. (Sometimes it is obvious what that is, but more often it’s not.) When we have the right problem in front of us, when we get to forget about politics and tactics and hierarchy and focus 100% on finding the right creative solution – that is when the magic happens.

Radical Collaboration

We work uncomfortably closely with our clients. Why? Because we can’t solve problems if you can’t help us define them. And we can’t make ideas that change things if we can’t help you sell them to your organization. So we prefer to work on things together. The same thing goes for collaboration with production partners, other agencies and inhouse departments. We like to stay close.

Strategy and Creative is One Process

The best ideas don’t happen linearly and they don’t come off the Client->Strategist->Creative assembly line. They happen when smart, creative people define a problem together, surround it and solve it - together. So Strategy and Creative are always working together, from before the brief to after the solution, making sure strategies are actionable and ideas are effective at solving the task. Strategy is a creative process. Creativity is a strategic process. Putting them together unleashes them both.

The Floor

It is what it sounds like. We put the work on the floor and all talk about it, think about it, make it better. It means that the Collective becomes our creative director, that our teams are held accountable for great work by everyone else in the collective, and that everyone (clients included) is comfortable being open, honest and egoless in making the best ideas better.

The Squiggle

Creativity doesn’t happen in a straight line – but that doesn’t mean it has to be chaotic. Our process focuses on finding the right problem for creativity to solve, then brings people into the messy, iterative creative process to make sure everyone stays pointed in the right direction. It’s full of starts and stops and re-thinks, but we find it’s the best way to get to ideas that change things.

Our history

Some people get triggered when someone tells them it can’t be done. It makes them try harder. We are those people. And back in 1986, when it all started, we were also those people. A small group jammed up in an office the size of a closet. In Gothenburg, a city known for its car industry and shi**y weather. Certainly not a hub for progressive advertising agencies. But we tried – hard – and about a year later, we won our first award for a cheesecake ad.

We’ve kept trying ever since, using empathy, creativity and collaboration to solve bigger and bolder problems. To come up with Ideas That Change Things. In 2013 we launched the one of the world’s most well-known campaigns – “The Epic Split” – featuring Jean Claude van Damme for Volvo Trucks. Over the past 30+ years we’ve helped ambitious companies like Volvo, H&M, P&G, Diageo, Oatly and Crocs find new ways to grow.

In 2016, we partnered with agency network Stagwell, which helped us bring our brand to New York, Toronto, Singapore, Shanghai, London and Dublin. How the story ends? It's only the beginning.