Electrifying advertising at the 100 Watt Awards
I attended “100-wattaren”, the prestigious Swedish award of advertising effect. Apart from me, 799 other advertising and marketing professionals were also attending this years’ awards. The 100 Watt Awards was founded by the Association of Swedish Advertisers in 1990, so this year the award also celebrated its 20th anniversary promoting advertising that really works.
Swedish advertisers have really improved their skills, especially in television and on the Internet. One advertising agency, Forsman & Bodenfors, has over the years been outstanding in winning awards. This year was no exception and they were awarded twice for their campaign “Dear Steve Jobs” for the Swedish National Television. It was a smart idea that made more than 400.000 people demand an iPhone app for SVT.
The effect of all these really good advertisers in Sweden, demonstrated by the high quality level of the nominees for the awards, could be that now can expect to export even more talent abroad. I wrote an article about this for Advertising Age earlier, titled “Why Sweden Is Teeming With Ad Talent:”
Agencies around the globe are waging a war to attract the most talented people. And many of these talented creative people hail from Scandinavia. But why is that? I argue that it is partly because of the school system and the dark winters.
Adage.com
The dark winter evening also offered several talented musical artists lighting up the night, where one of my favorites is the charming soul singer Jasmine Kara (music is also another good example of a successful Swedish export).