Marketing performance in the Nordics: What mattered in 2025 – and how to win in 2026
Download the full Marketing performance in the Nordics Report for 2025
LOOKING BACK
The six behaviours that distinguished the leaders from the rest
This executive summary distils the key trends, lessons and success factors from Nepa’s work with leading brands across FMCG, fashion, finance, retail, telecom, media, SaaS and travel. It is grounded in continuous brand tracking, campaign evaluation and Marketing Mix Modelling across hundreds of Nordic and international campaigns, as well as in-depth collaborations with clients such as If Insurance, Telenor, Varner, GANT and Fjällräven.
From the rapid maturation of AI, to intensified value pressure, rising customer expectations and a sharper demand for relevance across every touchpoint — this overview shows how Nordic marketing teams created results in a year defined by higher scrutiny, shifting behaviours and unprecedented choice.
👉 Below is a condensed version of our full report Nordic Marketing Performance 2025–2026.
Download the full report for deeper data, cross-category insights and practical guidance for your 2026 planning.
The six behaviours that distinguished the leaders from the rest
Below is the executive summery – fill out the form above to get access to our full report.
#1. Generative AI became mainstream — but maturity remained low
By late 2025, two-thirds to three-quarters of marketing teams reported using GenAI, typically for:
– content creation and creative variation
– faster insight generation
– data analysis and segmentation
– automation of repetitive marketing tasks
But fewer than half had a formal AI programme or operating model. Most operated a patchwork of successful pilots (content, personalisation, analysis) without governance, guardrails or standardised workflows.
What Nepa saw in client work
Across brand tracking and campaign analytics programmes, Nepa’s teams identified clear appetite for AI‑assisted reporting and storytelling, but also concerns around trust and interpretation. In internal roadmap discussions, Nepa’s product and insight leaders stressed that clients choose Nepa “because they need to understand the why behind the results”, not just to consume AI‑generated data summaries.
Nepa experiments with AI chatbots and narrative summaries highlighted a key constraint: if AI commentary is not tightly anchored in validated data and expert review, it risks “diluting our trust that the clients have with our recommendations.”
What mattered most
GenAI worked well as an accelerator — especially to draft dashboards narratives, highlight anomalies and reduce repetitive reporting — but organisations treating AI as “the strategy” rather than a tool saw inconsistent results or stalled adoption. The most successful teams framed GenAI as a layer on top of robust measurement (tracking, MMM, evaluations), with human experts still responsible for framing, recommendations and CFO‑ready stories.
#2. Hybrid, AI-assisted journeys became the dominant customer reality
Across industries, customers blended search, social, apps, websites, stores and human support:
– Social discovery drove fashion, beauty, lifestyle and entertainment choices.
– AI-assisted search and comparison shaped FMCG, travel, retail and telecom decisions.
– Human reassurance remained essential in high-stakes moments in finance, healthcare, mortgages and insurance.
With 71% of consumers wanting AI integrated into shopping experiences, hybrid journeys became the baseline expectation.
Nepa client patterns
In telecom, Telenor used continuous brand trackers in Sweden, Denmark and Finland to monitor how digital and physical touchpoints jointly shifted preference, NPS and awareness “to track brand changes over time.” Regular cross‑market meetings turned these trackers into a hub for journey optimisation, connecting perceived ease, trust and digital experience with strategic decisions.
In fashion and outdoor, brands like Fjällräven used dashboards to adapt strategies per market and demographic, ensuring that e‑commerce journeys, retail experiences and local communications worked together rather than in silos.
The winning pattern
Journeys designed around “AI for convenience, humans for confidence” outperformed both fully automated and fully human models. Brands that measured perception shifts continuously and used those insights to rebalance digital self‑service with human support (for example in telecom, insurance and finance) saw stronger gains in consideration and NPS than those optimising channels in isolation.
#3. Value pressure intensified — but value was never just about price
Inflation and cost-of-living pressures shaped decision-making across all sectors. But “value” did not equal “lowest price”. Instead, people gravitated to brands that delivered:
– fairness in pricing
– reliability and trust
– credible quality
– sustainability and responsibility
– local relevance or origin
In FMCG and retail, private label reached historic share levels. In fashion, durability, fit and quality mattered more than trendiness alone. In finance, trust + simplicity were the strongest predictors of consideration.
Evidence from Nepa analytics
Nepa’s Marketing Mix Modelling work illustrates how “Understanding the effect of marketing efforts on sales is crucial” when value perceptions are under pressure. In one MMM example, media contributed a relatively small short‑term share of total sales compared to the baseline driven by brand strength, underlining that value is built cumulatively over time — through consistent quality, brand equity and fair pricing, not just promotions.
In pharmacy and retail, long‑term tracking of the Swedish pharmacy market showed how brands that consistently invested in awareness and trust maintained or strengthened their position across nearly a decade of intense competition and new entrants.
The common theme
Brands that acted as value architects — balancing price, quality, trust and purpose — grew fastest. MMM and willingness‑to‑pay analyses helped teams identify which combinations of price, promotion and brand building maximised both perceived value and profitability, rather than chasing short‑term volume at the expense of long‑term equity.
#4. Evidence-driven steering separated leaders from followers
Across FMCG, fashion, finance, retail, telecom and media, a consistent pattern emerged:
Marketing organisations that institutionalised measurement outperformed those that didn’t.
The most effective model was universal across industries:
- Brand Tracking to monitor funnels, attributes and headroom
- Campaign Evaluation to understand which waves worked — and why
- MMM (Marketing Mix Modelling) to quantify the real sales and brand impact of every channel
Nepa’s “evidence backbone” in action
If Insurance partnered with Nepa to go beyond individual creative tests and build a “Cross-Market Measurement Framework” across Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Together, we co‑developed a structured model balancing long‑ and short‑term activity, cross‑media reach, consistent creative and clear brand links — turning “campaigns into learning loops” rather than one‑off bursts.
If now “consistently performs above Nepa’s advertising effectiveness benchmarks — across all five principles”, using the framework to fine‑tune campaigns, invest smarter and strengthen the brand in a measurable way.
Similarly, Telenor’s trackers were explicitly designed to turn “raw data” into “clear insights and actionable recommendations” that inform strategic growth decisions.
Varner and GANT applied continuous brand tracking and dashboards to monitor performance across markets, using quarterly insight meetings to connect shifts in key KPIs with commercial priorities.
The winners
Teams using this trinity for weekly, quarterly and annual decisions — not one-off studies — unlocked:
– clearer investment rules
– stronger budget alignment
– better CFO conversations
– double-digit ROI improvements in many cases
Nepa’s own product roadmap emphasises integrating the “Trinity” of tracking, campaign evaluation and marketing optimisation products in more “intelligent” ways, including pulling campaign effects into tracking numbers to support continuous optimisation.
#5. Brand, CX and journeys started operating as one system
Leading organisations across fashion, real estate, retail, finance, healthcare and SaaS simplified around a small number of attributes that:
– defined the brand
– appeared in CX measurement
– guided journey design
– were reinforced in creative and product experiences
Examples across industries:
– Finance & Insurance: safe, easy, helpful
– Fashion: fit, versatility, quality, value, sustainability
– FMCG: local, sustainable, good-value, reliable
– Retail: convenience, trust, inspiration, efficiency
Client evidence of system thinking
If Insurance’s framework explicitly connects communication strategy (brand + tactical) with a clarified brand position, increased preference and support for sales, ensuring that media, creative and brand all pull in the same direction. Distinctive assets and “standout messaging support recognition and maximise the impact of advertising,” making sure that every touchpoint reinforces the same brand ideas.
Fjällräven’s global tracking enabled “a structured approach to analyze brand performance, adapt to regional differences, and refine strategies for diverse target groups”, while maintaining a consistent core brand across markets.
Fashion and retail clients like Varner and GANT used segmentation, brand tracking and paths‑to‑purchase work to connect brand meaning (e.g. quality, fit, versatility) with concrete journey moments — from discovery to store to e‑commerce — and then track the impact over time.
When brand → CX → journeys → creative all aligned, gains in preference and conversion were faster and more durable than in organisations where each team optimised its own metrics.
#6. Creative platforms that travelled beat campaign‑of‑the‑month approaches
Across industries, the strongest performers resisted short-term fragmentation and invested in long-term creative platforms with distinctive brand assets.
Examples:
– consistent mortgage concepts delivering higher sender recall and consideration
– retail and fashion concepts improving funnel health across markets
– Nordic insurers using a single creative idea to build trust and preference over years
Nepa case learnings
If’s collaboration with Nepa is built on “a strong and stable creative concept — with room for inspiring variation” across four Nordic markets. This mix of consistency and flexibility has helped If outperform advertising effectiveness benchmarks on key principles, proving that long‑term platforms can deliver both efficiency and impact.
GANT and Fjällräven, operating in highly competitive fashion and outdoor markets, use continuous tracking and evaluation to ensure that global brand platforms land locally while preserving core equities. Their trackers “helped GANT understand what was happening, why, and how to respond”, and gave Fjällräven the tools to maintain brand consistency while expanding beyond the Nordics.
Evidence from MMM and campaign evaluations:
Long-term creative platforms delivered far stronger:
– sender recall
– attribute movement
– media efficiency
– cross-market consistency
– ROI
Short-lived, promotion-heavy campaigns rarely matched this impact.
What will matter most in 2026
- Move from “AI usage” to a structured AI operating model
Clear use cases, governance, training and integration with decision processes. For Nepa clients, this means using AI to reduce reporting friction and highlight insights — while keeping expert insight teams accountable for the “why” and for final recommendations. - Make hybrid, AI-assisted journeys the default standard
Balance AI-driven convenience with human reassurance where it matters. Telecom, finance and insurance cases show that customers want digital ease backed by credible, human reassurance in critical decisions. - Treat brand, CX and journeys as one system
Use a stable, tracked set of attributes that connect positioning to behaviour and business outcomes. The most successful Nepa clients use common frameworks across brand tracking, CX measurement and journey design, with dashboards providing shared truth for all teams. - Use evidence as the backbone of decisions
Brand Tracking + Campaign Evaluation + MMM as non-negotiable inputs to channel, creative and budget decisions. Continuous, integrated measurement — rather than isolated projects — is where Nepa clients see the biggest ROI gains. - Speak CFO language
Translate brand and marketing changes into simple, commercial rules-of-thumb (e.g. how a 1pp increase in preference or awareness translates into sales over 12–18 months), using MMM and tracking to connect “brand KPIs to your company’s financial performance, over time.”
LOOKING BACK
The six behaviours that distinguished the leaders from the rest
This executive summary distils the key trends, lessons and success factors from Nepa’s work with leading brands across FMCG, fashion, finance, retail, telecom, media, SaaS and travel. It is grounded in continuous brand tracking, campaign evaluation and Marketing Mix Modelling across hundreds of Nordic and international campaigns, as well as in-depth collaborations with clients such as If Insurance, Telenor, Varner, GANT and Fjällräven.
From the rapid maturation of AI, to intensified value pressure, rising customer expectations and a sharper demand for relevance across every touchpoint — this overview shows how Nordic marketing teams created results in a year defined by higher scrutiny, shifting behaviours and unprecedented choice.
👉 Below is a condensed version of our full report Nordic Marketing Performance 2025–2026.
Download the full report for deeper data, cross-category insights and practical guidance for your 2026 planning.
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