ICA turns grocery ads into Sweden's longest-running TV soap — 1,000 episodes

ICA, one of Sweden's major grocery retailers, wanted a long-term brand strategy rather than a stream of interchangeable price commercials. When Stockholm agency King pitched an advertising 'docu-soap' set in a store, ICA was hesitant — the plan was originally just five films.

Give the brand a story world: every ICA commercial is the next episode of a mini-soap in one store, so viewers follow the characters and get the offers along the way.

King created a recurring cast in one ICA store, led by store-owner Stig. Each under-a-minute episode advances small storylines — holidays, new hires, Midsummer indoors, an escape after someone opens fermented herring — while naturally showing the week's offers. The first film aired on 29 November 2001, and episodes have run on national TV and social channels ever since, with guests from Jamie Oliver to Zlatan.

On 6 May 2007 the series hit 205 episodes and entered Guinness World Records as the longest-running television advertising drama. ICA has kept producing a new film almost every week, celebrating its 1,000th episode in January 2025 — more than 23 years on air. The lead role passes between performers like a Bond role; when one Stig actor stepped down in 2021, Swedish media treated the succession as national news.

In 2001 ICA, one of Sweden's major grocery chains, asked agency King for a strategy that would outlast any single promotion. King's answer was a format ICA initially doubted: an advertising soap opera set inside a store. What was planned as five films became a series that was still running almost 25 years later.

The mechanics were simple and unusually durable. A recurring cast — store-owner Stig, Ulf, Jerry and colleagues — lived in one ICA store, and every commercial was the next short episode of their lives: national holidays, new hires, a Midsummer barbecue indoors, staff fleeing a tin of fermented herring. The week's offers appeared naturally inside the fiction, so selling never broke the story. The first episode aired on 29 November 2001, and the store-owner role has since been handed between actors the way film franchises hand over their leads.

The format turned advertising into a Swedish institution. By 6 May 2007 the series had broadcast 205 episodes, earning a Guinness World Record as the longest-running television advertising drama. ICA kept the weekly rhythm, and in January 2025 aired its 1,000th episode with an anniversary film reuniting characters from across the decades. When the actor playing Stig changed, newspapers and social media covered it as news — and even rival Lidl once acknowledged the character in its own advertising.

Recurring characters and slow-burning storylines turned commercials into something viewers chose to follow, not tolerate.

Setting every episode in the store let real special offers appear inside the fiction, so persuasion never interrupted entertainment.

Treating Stig like a Bond role — actors succeeding each other for 13-year stretches — protected the asset from depending on any one performer.

A near-weekly cadence for over two decades compounded familiarity into a national institution, complete with world record and celebrity cameos.

When every ad sells only the offer of the week, nothing compounds; give the brand characters and a story world that return, and each new episode builds on the equity the last one created.

The soap passed its 1,000th episode in January 2025, and ICA's own archive now describes a series that began with five planned films and has run for almost 25 years across TV and social media. In February 2026 Mikael Tornving became the latest actor to take the white ICA jacket, keeping the platform running into its third decade.