Forsman & Bodenfors Singapore’s quest to deliver big, fame-building creative campaigns that punch above their weight
When it comes to size, Forsman & Bodenfors Singapore may be a David in the company of Goliath’s, but the agency has become one of the hottest and most sought-after agencies in the region. Campaign Brief Asia sat down with Head of Creative Firrdaus Yusoff to find out more about their creative department and their fame-building creative philosophy.
Singapore was the first destination to land a Forsman & Bodenfors office outside of Sweden. 7 years on, Forsman & Bodenfors Singapore has become one of the region’s most awarded agencies, attracting an ambitious list of clients and talent.
The agency strives to deliver big, fame-building work for its clients through an earned attention approach – A brand of Creativity that is now a signature of Forsman & Bodenfors Singapore. With marketing budgets shrinking, they aim for creativity that punches above its weight, ideas that over-deliver for clients and impact ROI.
Instead of treating fame as an output of creativity, Forsman & Bodenfors see it as an input of brand equity. Earned attention leading to powerful fame-building work – campaigns for SK-II, KAMI (Down Syndrome International), Mandarin Oriental, Embassy of Sweden, Yeo’s and Gojek are examples.
And, most recently, Forsman & Bodenfors Singapore has grown their portfolio of clients to include some of the world’s most sought after brands including Visa, Carlberg and Ribena.
Creatively, Forsman & Bodenfors has been punching well above their weight and has been a top performer in the annual Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings over recent years. The agency ranked #1 overall in Singapore in 2023 and at #4 in the latest 2024 Creative Rankings – the smallest agency next to all other agencies in the Top 10 rankings.
Across Asia, the agency has remained in the top #20 rankings back-to-back for the past 7 years.
Individually, the creative department (pictured above) boasts some of the best performing creatives in the region – Head of Creative Firrdaus Yusoff was the #1 Creative in Singapore in the 2023 Campaign Brief Asia Creative Rankings and, in the latest 2024 Rankings, Group Creative Director Rachel Kennedy is ranked #1 in Singapore.
In addition, 6 of the creative department filled the top 6 positions in the Singapore Top 10 Rankings in 2023 and in the 2024 Rankings Group CD Gary Lim and Yusoff are ranked #6 and #7 respectively.
Head of Creative Firrdaus Yusoff (pictured above) has been with the agency for nearly 5 years and he said the Singapore agency has seamlessly adopted creative values across the global Forsman & Bodenfors collective, inherited from their Swedish founders Nordic sensibilities and aesthetic.
“Our Creative culture is inherent across the whole agency and factors beyond the creative department,” said Yusoff. “Everyone is aligned on our creative ambition, from suits to strategists. Our Leadership is aligned on the definition of what is ‘creative’ and what defines a “Forsman piece of work”. It also reflects in the kinds of clients we choose to work with.”
Yusoff said he was first attracted to join Forsman & Bodenfors Singapore by the body of work from the Swedish head office.
“It has always been phenomenal. They were one of the Cannes agencies of the decade in 2020, so I knew in order to ‘upgrade’ my thinking, I had to join the agency. I was the first creative they hired in Singapore, along with my partner at the time,” explains Yusoff.
Mandarin Oriental, Gojek and Kami are the three campaigns Yusoff is most proud of.
“I keep going back to Mandarin Oriental’s ‘Letters to Neighbours’ for the innovative thinking for the category. Also despite the modest budget, Gojek’s ‘The Flow’ for the magic of craft, and Kami, ‘The World’s First Virtual Influencer with Down Syndrome’, of course, for doing work that can really make a positive impact on underrepresented communities while delivering cutting edge creative ahead of its time.”
Kami has been a major award winner for the agency, picking up at Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia, Clio, Clio Health, One Show, Caples, AWARD, LIA and the Singapore CCA’s. Gojek won at Spikes, LIA, One Show and CCA. And Mandarin Oriental ‘Letters To Neighbours’ won at Spikes, MadStars and CCA.
VIEW KAMI ‘THE WORLD’S FIRST VIRTUAL INFLUENCER WITH DOWN SYNDROME’
VIEW MANDARIN ORIENTAL ‘LETTERS TO NEIGHBOURS’
VIEW GOJEK ‘THE FLOW’
The creative department has enjoyed strong and consistent creative leadership from Yusof, Group CD Rachel Kennedy, Group CD Gary Lim and Head of Studio Jason Feng.
“We see ourselves as a global agency, that just happens to sit in Singapore. So I tend to look for driven, hungry creatives and then I asked them if they’d like to produce the best work of their career,” said Yusoff.
“I always remind our creatives that we are a global agency, and we just happen to be in Singapore. So it’s important to bring in thinkers that have worked in multiple markets, and have proven themselves at every agency they’ve been in. And this is usually through iconic work. I like it when they have a piece in their book that makes me go, “ah damn I’ve used that for reference.”
He believes in building an elite sports team, rather than a team of rockstars.
“So you have world class players in different positions, so that the department is balanced out. Not everybody needs to be a comedy writer, or not everybody can pull off platform thinking. So I want to make sure that we don’t cancel out each other, and play off our individual strengths. That feels more potent when it comes to the ideas that’s brought out.
“We do tend to over index on senior talent, because that’s the prime difference for us. The senior folks work on the work directly; I have my own set of clients and I still write my own set of social posts,” said Yusoff.
Rachel Kennedy and Gary Lim are Group Creative Directors at Forsman & Bodenfors and are creative forces in the agency.
Since arriving at Forsman & Bodenfors from Canada, Kennedy has gone on to win a slew of awards including Cannes Lions. She represented the agency to deliver winning work to the Glass Lion for Change jury in 2023 and 2024 for Kami (Down Syndrome International) and SK-II campaigns. Kennedy is a highly sought after creative leader in the industry, and has judged across global creative shows, most recently she has been invited to judge the upcoming Cannes Lions 2025 and Dubai Lynx 2025.
Lim embarked on his creative journey in 2007 with BBDO Malaysia, quickly making his mark with a campaign for Jeep, which became the most awarded campaign in the world. His talent took him to Singapore, where he contributed to the success of DDB, BBDO and BBH. In the US, he further honed his skills at Digitas North America and Publicis New York. He joined Forsman & Bodenfors Singapore 3 years ago and over his career has worked on clients including Citi, Walmart, IKEA, Nike, Google, Samsung, Tiger Beer, Guinness, Mercedes-Benz, GMC, KFC, MINI, Amex, Pepsi, Gojek, Mandarin Oriental, SK-II and the United Nations. Notably, when aged just 29, his work earned a place in Clio’s Hall of Fame.
Most recently, Forsman & Bodenfors has also welcomed several senior creatives who are on top of their fields.
Michelle Co, previously Creative Director at FP7 McCann Dubai, has won over 80 awards at Cannes Lions, D&AD, AdFest, One Show, Clio, plus others. She joined Creative LIAsions 2024, The One Show’s Next Creative Leader 2024 (Global), and sat on the juries at Dubai Lynx and Gerety Awards. Previously, while in the Philippines, she worked on PEPSI, It’s more Fun in the Philippines (DOT), Cheetos, Mars, Pedigree and Johnson & Johnson.
Gwendelyn Gomez joined from TBWA Singapore – she has worked on iconic brands like Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore Airlines, Spotify, IKEA and Adidas. Her works have also been awarded at The One Show, AdFest and Singapore GONGs.
Allan Yeo has worked across Samsung, Singapore Tourism Board, Red Bull, UOB, Nike and more. His work on TikTok for the Singapore Tourism Board garnered over a hundred million views, helping the platform grow from 800k to 1.8 million followers. Proficient in Adobe Suite, he combines a strong foundation in motion graphics with expertise in branding, photography, videography and editing to deliver impactful, thoughtfully crafted campaigns.
VIEW SK-II ‘MY DESTINY, MY CHOICE’
VIEW MANDARIN ORIENTAL ‘EXCEPTIONAL BAY SYMPHONY’
VIEW GOJEK ‘SIDE TRIP’
VIEW YEO’S ‘DRINKABLE GARDEN’
What does a Swedish agency offer to clients and staff that a larger network multinational agency doesn’t?
“We are very much a global agency with the best of our Swedish heritage, so its a combination of things,” Yusoff said. “The lack of traditional hierarchy means each senior core team can run independently. They can drive client conversations, strategic discussions. We floor our work as often as we can; where you share and WIP areas where you’re stuck, with other creatives, strategy, accounts. Basically people who have nothing to do with the work. They will give their inputs and more often than not, it makes the work sharper. It is not death by committee of course. They can give their opinions, but its up to the core working team to take which comments are most relevant to them.”
The past few years has seen changes to both the agency and client landscape and to the Singapore industry as a whole. Yusoff believes the economy for the past 4 years has been a tricky one for clients.
“They’ve been forced to rethink their approach, becoming even more risk averse. This trickles down to spends, so agencies naturally are affected. In order to survive, we’ve had to be as agile as possible, and show up as proper true partners. We doubled down on our strategic and PR insights, to offer ideas that punch above in terms of organic coverage. Our premium content offering F&B Studios allowed us to also react as fast as we could without ever compromising the trademark Forsman quality.”
Yusoff concludes saying the 2023 and 2024 creative momentum the agency has experienced has carried through into this year.
“We’ve got some new exciting work breaking in Qtr 2 and 3 for our newest clients Visa, Carlsberg and Ribena and more – so stay tuned!”
Pictured top – the Forsman & Bodenfors creative department.
Pictured below – the Forsman & Bodenfors team outside their shophouse Singapore HQ.
