In Perfect Fools’ and McDonald’s session at Cannes Lions 2010 last week, Shaun Russell, Nordic Marketing Director at McDonald’s, teamed up with Fredrik Heghammar, Tony Högqvist and Patrick Gardner to tell the unlikely story behind this winter’s transmedia campaign Dreaming in Mono: the project’s strategic roots, how it evolved through production, and where McDonald’s Nordic is headed next. The seminar took place on the final day of the festival, Saturday. Watch a part of the session here.

Next week Perfect Fools’ Fredrik Heghammar, Tony Högqvist and Patrick Gardner are heading south together with McDonald’s Nordic Senior Marketing Director Shaun Russell to hold a seminar at the Cannes Lions festival. The topic is transmedia storytelling and in particular McDonald’s Dreaming in Mono, a brand entertainment experience consisting of over one hour of feature film content broadcast across TV networks in the Nordic region, as well as related elements distributed in-restaurant, on Xbox live, iTunes and online.

The session will take place in the Palais’ Debussy Theater from 1.00 – 1.45 pm on Saturday, June 26, and is open to all festival delegates. Read more about Dreaming in Mono here and see the full festival schedule here.

This year Sweden’s Guldägget (Golden Egg) advertising competition jury includes two Fools: Patrick Gardner will chair the Production category, while Tony Högqvist will be doing his part in Interactive. Full jury lists here (Swedish).

In today’s edition of AdAge.com Patrick Gardner proposes a new take on what drives advertising’s Scandinavian mavens. Check out the full text here.

D&AD Awards’ four-day judging marathon takes place this week, and PF Amsterdam creative director Mark Chalmers is among the judges, who together will go through 25,000 pieces of work to find worthy winners of the coveted Pencils (details here).
PF CEO Patrick Gardner is on the jury of the Microsoft MOUSE Awards (details here).
Winners will be announced June 11 and April 29 respectively.

Over the past few years independent creative agencies have taken a larger role on advertising’s main stage, firmly establishing themselves next to the large networks and developing innovative and game-changing campaigns. Despite the ongoing recession many of these companies have managed to stay ahead of the game and even see their business grow. Highlighting this development, independent agency network thenetworkone has in collaboration with the UK’s Campaign Magazine invited Perfect Fools and 15 other top independents to feature in “The World’s Leading Independent Agencies 2009″.

In a collection of articles published today, these agencies share their thoughts on the current status of the world of advertising. Perfect Fools’ Patrick Gardner and Mark Chalmers discuss how the recession is actually provoking a major shift to digital, and how to best carry the digital torch into the next decade. Online showcase here.

Perfect Fools co-founder and partner Patrick Gardner will join a panel discussion to take place during this year’s Advertising Week in New York.

The session, titled “Cutting-Edge Creative: How Sweden is Changing Advertising”, is co-hosted by The Consulate General of Sweden in New York, the Advertising Association of Sweden and the Swedish Trade Council, and will be moderated by Teressa Iezzi, Editor of Creativity and Creativity-Online.com.

It’s happening at the Paley Center on W. 52nd Street in Manhattan, from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Friday, September 26. If you’ve ever wondered what’s up with those crazy Swedish agencies (or even if you haven’t but just happen to be knocking about midtown with nothing better to do) be sure to stop by.

More info here.

It’s soon Flashforward time again. For the 16th version of the venerable conference the folks at Lynda.com are tucking in to Austin, Texas.

Perfect Fools has contributed with two Flash Film Festival judges (Tony and Patrick), as well as one festival finalist (Saab Aero X, Navigation).