In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, Jan Hansen shares how FINN is transforming car ownership through their subscription model. With over 22,000 customers and a team of 300 people, FINN has pioneered a fully digital car subscription service that includes everything from insurance to maintenance. Through their focus on trust-building and customer experience, they’ve created a new category at the intersection of e-commerce, subscription economy, and electric mobility.

Topics Discussed:

• Building trust for high-ticket subscription products
• Balancing paid and organic marketing channels
• Transitioning from performance to brand marketing
• Creating authenticity in influencer partnerships
• Adapting marketing strategies for EVs
• Managing marketing during automotive industry volatility
• Testing and scaling TV advertising

Lessons For Consumer Marketers:

1. Start with Product Experience to Build Trust Rather than relying on marketing messages, FINN builds trust through flawless digital experiences. A broken website button can destroy credibility faster than any ad campaign can build it, especially for high-ticket items.
2. Balance Performance and Brand Marketing by Growth Stage FINN generates 50% of traffic from paid and 50% from organic channels. They started with high-intent performance marketing and are now expanding into TV and awareness campaigns as the market matures.
3. Reimagine Influencer Marketing for Big Tickets Financial advice influencers and authentic lifestyle content creators in their 30s-40s drive results, while traditional promotional influencer content underperforms. The key is matching content style to the influencer’s typical format.
4. Turn Market Uncertainty into Competitive Advantage During automotive industry volatility, FINN positioned their subscription model as a way to try EVs without residual value risk. They adapted their marketing message to address consumer hesitation about emerging technologies.
5. Test Upper Funnel Marketing Systematically When expanding into TV advertising, FINN maintains their testing discipline by setting clear hypotheses and success metrics, even though data becomes more ambiguous higher in the funnel.
6. Simplify Attribution for Complex Sales Instead of building complex multi-touch models, FINN uses “First Touch Plus” or “Last Touch Plus” attribution with specific overrides for key conversion events like voucher redemptions. They focus resources on moving the needle rather than perfecting attribution.