The Challenge: Attention is becoming scarcer

Retail media is evolving rapidly. What started as digital shelf placements, banners, and promotional emails has become one of the most strategic growth channels for retailers and brands alike. But as competition for consumer attention intensifies, brands need more than visibility. They need participation.

For Danish online grocery retailer nemlig, interactive marketing has become an important part of that evolution.

As part of its Retail Media offering, nemlig uses Scratcher to help FMCG brands create interactive experiences that increase engagement, generate valuable consumer insights, and strengthen brand awareness throughout the customer journey.

According to Frederik Eisig, who works within the Retail Media team at nemlig, one of the biggest challenges facing brands today is simple:

"The attention window is so small. If we can get consumers to spend even 15, 20 or 30 seconds more with a brand, we believe it makes a difference."

Like many retailers, nemlig has offered retail media opportunities for years. However, the category has matured significantly over the past few years.

What was once limited to a few digital placements and promotional emails has evolved into a structured retail media business focused on helping brands achieve measurable outcomes beyond sales.

Today, interactive marketing sits alongside classic retail media formats as a strategic tool for engagement.

A different approach to Retail Media

Unlike many Scratcher customers who use interactive campaigns directly for lead generation or customer acquisition, nemlig operates from a different perspective.

They offer interactive campaign experiences as a retail media product that brands can purchase as part of their marketing activities on nemlig.

This allows FMCG brands to move beyond standard promotional campaigns and create experiences that customers actively choose to engage with.

"We actually sell interactive campaigns as part of our retail media offering. It becomes another tool brands can use alongside display advertising and promotional placements."

The objective is not necessarily immediate sales.

Instead, nemlig encourages brands to think about awareness, engagement, and long-term brand building first.

Why brands are investing in interactive experiences

One of the most powerful metrics nemlig shares with participating brands is time spent with the brand.

Instead of measuring only impressions or clicks, they can demonstrate how much attention consumers devoted to the experience.

As Frederik explains:

"When we share insights, we can tell a brand that consumers collectively spent 24, 35 or even more hours engaging with their brand during the campaign."

For FMCG brands competing in crowded categories, this type of engagement creates a significant advantage.

Consumers may only spend a few seconds making purchasing decisions online. Creating a memorable interaction beforehand helps brands remain top-of-mind when customers are ready to add products to their basket.

Beyond Games: Using interactive campaigns for product innovation

One of the most interesting examples came from a premium fresh produce brand launching a new tomato product.

As an alternative to a classic promotional campaign, nemlig designed a multi-step retail media activation together with the brand, combining product sampling, interactive feedback and promotional visibility into one connected experience.

Step 1: Product Sampling

Consumers selected a free product sample as part of their grocery order.

Step 2: Interactive Feedback Survey

A week later, those same consumers received a survey built using Scratcher.

The survey was designed as an interactive experience rather than a traditional feedback form. Participants answered five questions about their experience with the product and entered a prize draw for a nemlig cash voucher.

Instead of simply measuring awareness or collecting generic feedback, the survey helped the brand understand consumer perception immediately after the product trial while keeping participation engaging through an interactive experience.

Step 3: Retail Media Promotion

Two weeks later, the brand launched a promotional retail media campaign across the platform.

Together, these activities created three separate consumer touchpoints within approximately four weeks.

The results surprised everyone

The survey generated response rates far above expectations.

Frederik initially expected a 5–10% response rate. Instead, the product launch achieved response rates above 35%.

More importantly, the data uncovered something unexpected.

One of the first survey questions asked consumers whether they already knew the brand before receiving the sample. The team initially assumed most participants would already be familiar with the brand.

Instead, the responses revealed that a significant share of consumers had never experienced the brand before.

The insight revealed that the campaign had successfully introduced the brand to a large nemlig audience while simultaneously collecting authentic feedback from real consumers who had actually tried the product.

Connecting engagement with shopper data

What makes nemlig's approach particularly powerful is the ability to connect engagement data with shopper behavior.

Because participants were known customers who received product samples, the retail media team could follow purchasing behavior after the campaign.

The objective was simple:

Did consumers who reported positive experiences actually become buyers of the tomato brand?

And more importantly:

Did they become repeat buyers?

This creates a unique bridge between:

• Brand awareness
• Product trial
• Consumer feedback
• Purchase behavior
• Customer loyalty

Rather than relying solely on survey responses, nemlig can validate whether positive sentiment eventually translates into real sales and repeat purchases.

Retail Media as a full-service offering

Another reason for the success of these activations is simplicity.

nemlig manages the entire process on behalf of participating brands:

• Campaign strategy
• KPI definition
• Interactive format selection
• Creative execution
• Campaign management
• Campaign insights & performance statistics

Instead of allowing brands to bring their own interactive technology, nemlig centralizes everything through a consistent framework that connects directly with their own customer data ecosystem.

"We always start by asking what the brand wants to achieve. If everyone chooses the same game every time, it becomes boring for the audience. The format should fit the objective."

Scaling Retail Media through seasonal partnerships

Interactive campaigns are not limited to product launches.

One of nemlig's largest annual retail media activations is its Christmas Calendar, where the team transformed a traditional seasonal campaign into a collaborative retail media experience involving 24 different FMCG brands.

Instead of partnering with a single headline sponsor, nemlig invited a different brand behind each calendar door, giving every partner its own dedicated day to engage shoppers.

For consumers, this created a much richer experience. Every day introduced new prizes, new products and new brands, encouraging repeat visits and continued participation throughout December.

For brands, it created an opportunity to stand out individually while benefiting from one of nemlig's biggest seasonal campaigns.

For nemlig, the approach also expanded the commercial value of the campaign by opening participation to multiple retail media partners instead of relying on a single sponsor.

The result was a Christmas Calendar that felt first and foremost like nemlig's own experience, while giving participating brands meaningful exposure in a highly engaging format.

What brands can learn from this approach

The biggest lesson from nemlig's retail media strategy is that interactive campaigns are not just about entertainment.

When used strategically, interactive experiences can help brands:

• Increase attention and engagement
• Generate consumer feedback
• Measure brand awareness
• Support product launches
• Discover new-to-brand customers
• Validate marketing effectiveness
• Create stronger retail media partnerships
• Build future customer loyalty