Evidence first,_then the choices

01

Where the evidence starts

This is the first step of the work. It gives the marketing and media strategy an audience and a clear view of what is holding growth back.

The need often shows when growth has stalled and the reason is unclear, or when people inside the company hold several views of who the customer is. We start with what is already known: sales figures, customer data, earlier studies and campaign results. Then we decide whether that is enough or whether you need a study of your own.

02

An audience is more than age and region

Age and region do not tell you how an audience is buying right now. 44 %* of 18 to 74-year-olds, about 1 740 000 people, say they have cut their spending over the past six months. Among 18 to 29-year-olds the figure is 49 %, among 60 to 74-year-olds 37 %.**

So we also describe the audience by what it is interested in, which brands matter to it, how it feels about advertising and how its own finances look. These are asked in NØRR3 Media Insights, so nobody has to guess the audience.

03

Brand position and competitors

We read the brand's position from the brand funnel: how many people know the brand, are interested in it, use it or consider it their first choice. High awareness alone does not tell you whether the brand gets chosen, so we look at which step opens the gap to competitors. The Research page explains how the funnel is measured and how the sample is sized.

If the brand is on the NØRR3 Media Insights brand list, we also see which media are followed by people who know the brand and are interested in it but do not use it yet.

04

One evidence base, three uses

NØRR3 Media Insights is the shared evidence base for three pieces of work. The audience description guides the strategy. The same group's media use guides the media plan. Media use and the audience's interests and attitudes go into the creative brief the advertising agency receives before ideas are developed.

When all three rest on the same data, the strategy, the media plan and the ads describe the same person. If you later want to use the data yourself, you can do so in the Media Insights app in NØRR3 Marketing Engine. The strategy work does not require a licence.

05

What you get

The outcome is a written view: who the audience is and how large it is, where the brand stands against competitors, what the barriers to growth are and what the results should be measured by. It also records the choices for the next steps. We present it to management, and it becomes the starting point for the marketing strategy and the media strategy.

Once the campaign has run, the measurement results come back to this step. The next round starts from evidence that has already been measured.

06

What our campaign studies have shown

When a brand is known but not chosen, our campaign studies have shown two patterns. People know the name, but few consider the brand their first choice. Or they know the name but cannot link a single attribute to it.***

Spontaneous and aided measures tell you different things. Spontaneous recall follows media weight quickly, while aided awareness moves more slowly. So we report them separately and read them against competitors' figures.***

* NØRR3 Media Insights, Norstat panel, wave 9, August 2026, n = 2 022, aged 18 to 74, margin of error ±2.2 percentage points. Question: how has your financial situation affected your spending over the past 6 months (cut slightly or clearly). ** Same wave and question. Age groups: 18 to 29-year-olds n = 400 (±4.8 percentage points), 60 to 74-year-olds n = 559 (±4.1 percentage points). *** NØRR3's own campaign bank: each lesson recurs across campaign studies in more than one industry.