Nordea Bank wanted to change the public’s perception of the bank as big and blue, traditional and less personal than it’s competitors in Norway. In 2022, the bank launched a new brand strategy to increase the perception of being local, close and caring. The same year, Nordea partnered with Palmesus: Norway’s number one music festival for Gen Z.
The initial partnership between the bank and the festival aimed to “reach the unreachable” Gen Z on their terms and in their arena – and make a difference by being relevant and move brand parameters. And the results were groundbreaking. Never before had the bank seen these types of positive results in brand and customer satisfactions surveys.
After 2 successful years of partnership activations at the festival arena, Nordea and Palmesus wanted to test the format on other target groups. The bank was facing one of it’s most challenging years. Nordea had just acquired the private banking market from one of its competitors in Norway, and insight showed that when the news was announced to their customers, the brand preference of Nordea dropped from low to even lower, while brand preference was rising at competitor banks. Nordea was facing a marketing challenge similar to the one that made us enter into the partnership with Palmesus two years earlier: How can a bank reach the unreachable?
