Harva and Danish WaveCrest form one of the largest retail agencies in the Europe

The Danish WaveCrest and the Finnish Harva Marketing Oy merge. The consortium will form one of the largest retail marketing agencies in the Nordic countries. With the merger, Harva will focus on two business areas: digital marketing expertise and a comprehensive retail offering. 

Marketing agency Harva Marketing Oy was founded in 2016 by merging three Finnish marketing agencies. In 2021, Harva Marketing acquired Sunnyone Promotion Oy. The underlying idea of Harva has been to provide comprehensive marketing services from a single door, and the agency has provided its clients with digital marketing, event marketing and sales promotion. 

WaveCrest was founded in November 2020 through the merger of the two of the largest retail agencies in Denmark, Brandiators and Gorm Larsen Nordic. The Danish company operates in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, but a stronger local presence in the Finnish market has been in their plans.

We surveyed all Finnish agencies and wanted Harva as our partner.
- Sune Nielsen, CEO of WaveCrest

On their side, Harva Marketing had been contemplating for a long time how to answer the growing demand from international customers to work with a single agency in all Nordic countries. Former loose cooperation with various actors had not been a sufficient solution. WaveCrest’s call in late summer 2021 came at a perfect time

WaveCrest’s proposal was interesting because they wanted a genuine partnership. In addition, our expertise in the non-retail market place was also seen as a real strength. We would not have been interested if it had only been a matter of acquisition.
- Tero Ylönen, Harva Marketing’s Chairman of the Board

The service offering will be significantly strengthened, and the company will remain the same

Harva Marketing is owned by nine of its employees, WaveCrest is owned by Sune Nielsen, who previously piloted Brandiators, and Jens Brinck, former CEO of Gorm Larsen. With the acquisition, Harva's owners will become co-owners of WaveCrest.

WaveCrest's and Harva's customers will have access to a significantly strengthened and expanded service offering.

In addition to face-to-face sales promotion, Harva has strong expertise e.g in branding, creative design and content marketing. We have been a HubSpot partner since 2016. All this expertise is needed in the modern retail world. - Päivi Lehtonen, Harva's Director of Sales and Marketing

In addition to strong retail expertise, WaveCrest has several innovative digital services: the retail platform SaleMate, the e-commerce optimization tool Digital Shelf, and the online sales support tool Virtual Shop Assistant. A strong and modern sales and marketing services portfolio is one of the key strengths of the merger.

Harva’s and Tessa’s brands will be merged with WaveCrest, but there will be no legal changes at this time. Sunnyone Promotion will continue as a subsidiary of the group with it’s own brand. The day-to-day management of the operations in Finland will not change and all employees of Harva Marketing and its subsidiaries, as well as WaveCrest, will continue to be employed by the companies.

Please contact us for more information

Päivi Lehtonen
Country lead of Finland 
+358 44 328 8200

Sune Nielsen
CEO, WaveCrest
+45 25 35 70 58​