Tom H. C. Anderson - Next Gen Market Research

Scandinavian Brand and Product Innovation… and tips for marketing to the Swedish melting pot

I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at Tendensdagen (Tendency/Trends Day) yesterday in Stockholm. It’s the largest marketing conference in Sweden with over 600 in attendance. There were several interesting speakers, and I may interview a couple of them here in the future.

Key note speakers Alf Rehn from Finland and Ingebrigt Steen Jensen from Norway had particularly inspiring and innovative messages. Jens Nordfält from Sweden had some very interesting retail level data to share (something which is often hard to come by).

Another speaker I found interesting was Laleh Maghonaki of Folklink who spoke about marketing to the growing immigrant communities of Sweden (you can catch her on TV4 tomorrow morning 9.20). While most of us probably view Sweden as a very homogenous society, they have had one of the highest immigration rates in the world in recent years. So while marketing to Hispanics has long been a growing trend in the US, marketing to these minority groups, especially those from the middle east is just becoming vogue in Sweden.

I believe this new multiculturalism, and the subsequent clash between rather liberal Swedish values and the religious fundamentalist values of some of the immigrant groups, is accelerating the Americanization of Swedish culture. While probably not a popular concept to admit to, it seems like Sweden has started to look to and appreciate how the US has dealt with these issues in marketing as well as politics.

Perhaps some US multinationals may also benefit from understanding some of the lessons learned in Sweden on how to better market to these middle eastern groups.

Stay tuned…