Nordic Special: Forsman & Bodenfors

Calm, humble, serious… Forsman & Bodenfors’ Samuel Åkesson stands out in the often brash ad world. The thoughtful art director has inherited a strong sense of responsibility from his socially-conscious parents and, after a false start in London, has found the perfect creative home for it in the mutually supportive, yet collaboratively critical, award-hoovering Swedish agency

Talking to Forsman & Bodenfors (F&B) art director Samuel Åkesson, perched on a park bench, watching sprinklers dampen moss-covered tombstones, it’s clear that this is a man who takes his role within the industry very seriously. He maintains a balanced perspective, proving to be calm and humble throughout our chat – surprising, given the agency’s notoriety after 2013’s The Epic Split spot for Volvo Trucks and its status as the most awarded agency in the world, according to the Gunn Report 2014.

Despite 18 years in advertising, Åkesson admits he’s still mastering the skill of differentiating a good idea from a bad one. He constantly strives to push the boundaries between good and great, realising there’s very little room for average work – it’s an all-or-nothing kind of game. He’s most successfully creative when working in a collaborative culture; F&B’s fluid creative partner structure means he’s never limited to working with just one person.

No future in hierarchy in the UK

But it took a while to discover that this was the environment where he would excel. After seven years working in London, including four at Fallon, Åkesson risked burn-out, exhausted by the city’s competitive edge. “I was tired of the hierarchical way of working in London, with creative directors and other senior workers having to sign off and approve everything,” he says. “I wasn’t ultimately creatively responsible for what I produced, which meant that I didn’t take [full] responsibility for my work… so I ended up being creatively lazy.”

Thankfully, it seems he was too lazy to get up and walk away from advertising all together. After all, he’d known he wanted to work in the business since the age of 15, when someone mentioned that it could be a good way for him to continue drawing. He grew up in Uppsala, about an hour’s drive north of Stockholm, with parents working in the caring rather than the creative industries: his mother helped behaviourally-disabled people get into employment, while his father devoted his life to distributing aid to developing countries. Perhaps their work subconsciously rubbed off on him and sensitized him to the importance of understanding human emotion.

Somebody listen to the children

Åkesson certainly takes the responsibilities inherent in what he does seriously. “We’re working in advertising, we’re making things that we want millions of people to see and we want millions of people to somehow change their mind – that’s what we’re trying to do daily,” he says. “So if we’re going to do that, maybe we have to take some responsibility for how we do it and in what direction they’re changing their minds.”

He knows there’s no one-size-fits-all for socially-relevant advertising, but he wants to tell purpose-filled stories creatively. Luckily for him, F&B creatives are fully responsible for their work. While everyone can comment on other people’s ideas, ultimately it’s up to the creative on that project to decide which ideas to take on. So there’s a mutual responsibility to make ground-breaking work while still enjoying true creative autonomy.

“It does put a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. You can’t shy away or give [the project] to someone else,” he says. “And it can be tricky with the social aspect of sharing your work and listening to other people give constructive criticism – that’s a skill in itself.”

But for Åkesson this approach works and it clearly invigorates him. His campaign, Slow Down GPS, for If Insurance was responsible for six of the 17 Cannes Lions F&B took home this year: a gold, a silver and four bronze awards. At its heart was a special satnav app that switched to a child’s voice when drivers approached schools and daycare centres.

Åkesson is also learning when to let go, close the door on an idea and move forward. “Personally I’ve got better with that over time and that makes the process a bit easier. You feel less shit,” he says. “I still feel bad about it, but when it’s not as good as I wanted, I can live with it more because I know it just means I’ll learn and do something better next time.” He also strives to inject more of his personality into his work, realising that being opinionated in advertising can be an asset, a way of relating to and engaging with audiences. His advice? “Don’t hide your opinions. Don’t hide your personality. Because the more you let that through, the more likely you are to get people interested.”

And this fascination with self-development translates to F&B’s in-house culture too. Åkesson admits that, since the success of The Epic Split, the agency consciously stepped up its game in a bid “to maintain that positive curve [and continue] its positive creative development”. But he’s equally aware that in order to secure the bigger-name clients, it’s not just about the work that they do but also the way in which they distribute their ideas. It’s an exciting time for F&B, as they’re in the process of partnering strategically with MDC. “It feels like the right way of doing it: we’ll be maintaining our culture and spirit, yet we’ll be able to export [our ideas] to bigger parts of the world,” he says. “We hope to keep doing the same but on a bigger, global scale.”  

As the chapel bell chimes and our chat draws to a close, I realise that our relocation to this setting (because the coffee shop around the corner was busy) is reflective of Åkesson’s approach to advertising. He’s an optimistic realist, ready to think creatively to find a suitable solution, even if it means doing something unexpected… like having an interview in an old cemetery.