Friday 13 April 2007

Planning announces itself in Sweden


I absolutely love Sweden. I'm not entirely sure why... the brutal honesty of the people, the effortless style of everything they do, dark-haired girls who worry about their blonde roots showing ... whatever the reason, I am happiest when in Sweden.

And I've always thought how nice it would be to work there. But can the Swedish ad industry even sustain planners?

Well, yes, it can and it does. And they've organised themselves into APG Sweden... coffee mornings, blogging, the whole shabang. So if you've got the urge to indulge in a little Svenske planning, you could do worse than check out APG Sweden.

And if Scandinavia is too cold and perfect for you, but you still need some local insight, then Claes Foxérus is your man. Claes is a 100% pure Swedish planner who is super-happy to traipse across Scandinavia and satisfy your every planning or marketing whim. What is more he is one of the lovely chaps behing APG Sweden - so he'd be just as super-happy to have you pop by to one of their coffee mornings.

4 comments:

Agatha said...

Hi David!
I thought your article and your "theory" very interesting...
I also think that advertising should be less superfitial and more meaningful, in other words: more honest.
So I write about it in my blog to let the people here in Brazil learn more about the sad-vertising.
Unfortunately, I think you will not understand, because I wrote in Portuguese, but I think another persons will read that and also agree with your article...

So, here's the link if you met some Brazilian guy:
http://adrulez.blogspot.com/2007/05/melhor-ser-alegre-que-ser-triste.html

I hope you like it...
;)

David Bonney said...

Hello Agatha,

Wow, I may be behind the times but I still get a kick out of the web being truly global... how exciting to have a Brazilian write up! The previous best was Finnish, but somehow I'd expect them to embrace sad-vertising... appreciation from the Latin world is so much more rewarding!

I look forward to getting a translation and will be interested to see what comments you get.

Unknown said...

Hi there…

Nice blog this.

I love Sweden too. A lot. It's my home, always will be, even though I don't live there anymore. I always find it interesting to hear foreigners' perspective of Sweden and the Swedes. Yours is obviously very positive, and rightfully so if you ask me, but don't you also find the Swedes, generally speaking, to be a bit introverted and sort of socially inflexible? What I mean by that is essentially that most social activities require careful planning/timing (often weeks in advance for a chat over a cup of coffee, for example). Spontaneity isn’t one of the things that characterises a typical Swedish person, is it? But there are of course other things about Sweden, really lovely things, of which you mention a few in your post.

Cheers,

Fredrik Särnblad

David Bonney said...

hello fredrik,

i must apologise for having let this blog fall into abeyance in recent weeks and for failing to see your comment. Work, training and a touch of aphasia have left blogging on the end of a very long list of things to do.

but I hope to get going again now, and I'll kick off by answering your question. yes, Swedes can be very introverted and inhibited... but not when drunk. And yes they can be inflexible and require weeks of social planning. But maybe that's how things should be, and maybe their calm relaxedness is why i always seem to have a perfect holiday when in sweden? i must heed your warning and wonder if i would quickly grow tired of sweden were i ever to move there, but for the time being i tremain an idealist :)

Glad you like / liked the blog, will hopefully get back into the habit this week.