Case Study
VARNER trusts Nepa to uncover its potential
Headquarters
Maria Skolgata 83,
118 53 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: +46 8 400 268 00
Email: hello@nepa.com
Follow us
Solutions
Resources
Company
The story
Norwegian company VARNER is one of the largest retailers in Scandinavia, consisting of retail chains Cubus, Dressmann, Dressmann XL, Bik Bok, Carlings, Volt, Junkyard, and Levi’s store. The company has nearly 8,500 employees, 1,200 stores, and 6 eCommerce websites in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark.
How did VARNER go from one store in Oslo back in 1962, to this Nordic clothing empire? By uncovering the brand’s potential.
A long-term partnership with brand tracking agency Nepa has enabled VARNER to increase their understanding of their brands, their markets, and their potential areas for growth.
“Your insights meetings are always so useful. Outputs are clear, you create a lot of engagement, and there are always interesting discussions.”
— Knut Vidar Nilsen, Chief Marketing Officer
The plan
VARNER wished to increase their understanding of how each of their brands performed in their main markets, and to uncover where the areas for growth lay. Working together, a continuous brand tracker was identified as the best option, as it would offer VARNER an uninterrupted holistic view of their brands, their markets, and their opportunities.
Actionable outcomes were an essential part of the project for VARNER. Quarterly reports and insights meetings were set up between the two teams in order to dig down into current hot business topics and areas of potential. In order for VARNER to make the most of their data available outside of these times, a dashboard was set up for immediately accessible business insights.
6
brands tracked
3
markets
The result
VARNER not only now have insights on how their individual brands are performing via Nepa’s brand tracking dashboard, but regular consultation meetings with Nepa have highlighted key areas to strengthen and grow. Nepa has a long history with VARNER, thoroughly understands their business, their ways of working, and competitive landscape. This means that in these meetings Nepa can use their industry knowledge to open up discussions on potential areas for action, and adjustments in business strategies and tactics can be based on hard facts.
“The brand tracking service provided by Nepa has enabled us to monitor brand performance on a chain and group level. This enables us to identify growth potential for individual chains and for the group, as well as learning more about how individual brand concepts are performing and how they potentially could be strengthened.
The brand tracking is one of several important insight elements we use to develop our brands, and in combination it becomes very important.” said Knut Vidar Nilsen, Chief Marketing Officer.
Our Approach
We convert data into opportunities for growth
1. Marketing is an investment
Many brands are seeing budget cuts. But focusing only on short-term goals means you can miss the contribution of long-term brand building to growth. To demonstrate the ROI of your marketing you need a team that is experienced in linking your brand KPIs to your company’s financial performance, over time. We help you make those connections, which are essential for making marketing decisions that drive growth.
2. Ensure brand relevance
As technologies, trends, and industries shift, so do your customers. You need to keep on the pulse of people’s perceptions and behaviours by understanding how your brand is used, its personality, and how your communications are working in order to make adjustments over time.
3. Select the right channels
Assessing the strength of each individual media channel helps you to focus on the right investments. But most media measurement does not integrate and evaluate all the different channels now available. Our Media Mix Modelling assesses the ROI of all media investments including social, allowing brands to make decisions around budgets for every media, execution, campaign duration, and creative.
4. Increase market share
There are several ways to increase market share. Sell more to existing customers. Expand your customer base. Sell through new channels. However, in order to choose the right option, you need to understand your potential customer base.
Our Market Segmentation gives you clear, useful information on both current and potential customers. It splits people into different groups based on needs and values, offering insights on how to grow your brand in these different markets.
5. Improve campaign performance
As media changes, so do people and their behaviour. To improve performance, you need to evaluate and evolve your campaigns constantly, so that you can make and measure adjustments over time. We help you find the right mix of channels, messaging, creative, and format to increase your impact and ROI.
OUR WIDER OFFER
Adapt to win
Our 360-degree, continuous approach shows how consumers think, helps realise growth potential, and demonstrates return on investment.
Marketing Mix Modelling
Adjust activity in near real-time with models that are continuously learning from your media activity, sales performance, and brand health.
Campaign Evaluation
Running campaigns is all about constant evaluation and evolution. Find the right mix of channels, messaging, creative, and format to get the most out of your communications.
Custom Modules
Use additional modules to manage pricing, brand personality, brand assets and category drivers and place customers at the heart of your marketing decisions.