Johan Ohlson leaves Saatchi Romania and will get involved in developing Romanian creative freelancing market

Johan Ohlson ended his collaboration with Saatchi& Saatchi Romania after 2 years during which he coordinated the creative department of the agency and added to portfolio a lot of campaigns and awards at national and international festivals.

For the moment, and because he felt in love with Romania, he is freelancing and intends to help developing the Romanian creative freelancing market, as the trend was very successful on markets like Germany, UK and US. “The real benefit of freelance is that whoever needs the ideas only pays for the work that has been done and nothing else. In tough financial times this is a very efficient way to only pay someone when you have work.”, Johan explains.

While at Saatchi & Saatchi Romania, Johan helped the agency to get the 1st Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions PR and also a nomination at Cannes Direct Lions with “Plant the bill”, a campaign for Enel. “Repetition” campaign, developed by Horia Motoi association with support from the agency, was also nominated for Cannes Media Lions. 

Other prizes that Saatchi Romania got in 2012 were Silver Effie with Chio – “Home made movies” and Silver at Golden Drum with “Braveheart” (Motivational GPS campaign for Toyota) and Gold in World Luxury Awards for “The Chronicler” for Rafael & Sons Diamonds & Jewellery.

In 2013, Johan was one of the creatives that contributed and supported the idea of the international campaign “Days of Hope”, implemented also in Romania by Saatchi & Saatchi. The campaign was awarded also to the most important festivals in the industry, like CLIO Awards (1Gold, 2 Silver), New York Festivals (1 Gold, 3 Bronze), Cannes (6 Silver, 1 Bronze), Golden Drum (1 Gold) and London International Awards (3 Gold, 2 Silver).

Johan was also of big help for the agency when it came of winning a number of pitches, one of the most important won accounts being Rompetrol.

Johan Ohlson also got involved in activities aiming to educate Romanian advertising market, as teacher and speaker at “The Alternative School for Creative Thinking”, advertising school founded by Teodora Migdalovici.

Saatchi & Saatchi Romania meant for me a creative challenge: daring and innovative campaigns with visible results, awarded at the most important ad festivals in the world. The experience accumulated within this team is important for me, and the team I worked with proved to be very good in making exceptional campaigns.

I think Romania has a very high creative potential and it is a place that conquered me and I feel it is suited for me. For the future, I am considering the option of collaboration proposals coming from other countries, but I also consider the options from Romania 

Johan Ohlson

Ohlson has 15 years of experience in advertising and joined Saatchi & Saatchi Romania after accumulating a vast international experience working for agencies in 8 countries: BBDO Hamburg, Scholz & Friends Hamburg, Team One Warsaw or DDB Warsaw. Also, he worked in Saatchi & Saatchi network in Budapest and Warsaw.

Recently, he ranked 41 in a top of worldwide creative directors made by PIAF.

Johan Ohlson has in portfolio over 50 international prizes at multiple renown festivals. Among the most important are 11 Lions at Cannes, One Show Gold, Epica Gold, Eurobest Gold, Montreux Grand Prix. Also, he was member of the juries at festivals such as Golden Hammer, ADCD, Art Directors Club (USA and Poland), Golden Drum and will be judging, this year, at Eurobest and ADC*RO.