The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2023–2025
Jem & fix's 'Get It Fixed' films make unfinished DIY the joke — and the record profit
Wordless comedy repositioned store chain jem & fix from 'cheap' to 'finishes jobs' — record DKK 458.3M profit, +70% esteem, Effie Bronze.
jem & fix
What it had to solve
The Scandinavian DIY market was a price war with no differentiation, and jem & fix's fixed low prices were being read as low quality. The chain needed to broaden appeal, build esteem and support Nordic expansion without surrendering its low-price positioning.
How it works
Jem & fix is a Danish discount DIY chain whose fixed low prices were doing the opposite of the job: in a Scandinavian market defined by price wars, its low-price positioning read as low quality, and brand esteem trailed competitors'. For the chain's planned Nordic expansion, being the cheapest was not a reason to be chosen — it was a reason to be skipped.
Uncle Grey's answer was 'Get It Fixed': claim the finished job, not the price tag, as the brand's territory. A series of dialogue-free comedy films showed half-finished home projects going wrong — a wardrobe drifting, a shelf collapsing — with the joke landing as jem & fix products put everything right. With no words to translate, the same films ran unchanged across Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and the humor gave the low prices something better to be attached to.
The results rewrote the chain's numbers: record net profit of DKK 458.3M (€61.4M), up 41.7%, with profit margin up 15%, web traffic up 12.3% and store footfall up 8%. Brand esteem grew 70%, brand searches rose double-digit in all three markets, and jem & fix became the strongest brand in its category on BrandAsset Valuator — a positioning change that had already paid for itself when the Effie jury confirmed it with a 2025 Bronze in Multi-Market Retail.
Why it lands
- Dialogue-free comedy travels: the same films ran unchanged across Denmark, Sweden and Norway — one production, three markets, no localization budget.
- The joke targets the customer's half-finished reality, not the price tag, so the 'cheap = low quality' association was never argued with head-on — it was out-joked.
- Wordless physical comedy earns longer attention in a category of tactical price spots; the humor made the tactical product message itself the entertainment.
- Brand warmth and margin rose together: repositioning attached 'low price' to competence, not compromise — which is why esteem (+70%) and margin (+15%) grew.
What it did
Record net profit of DKK 458.3M (€61.4M), up 41.7%; brand esteem +70%; profit margin +15%; web traffic +12.3%; store footfall +8%; the strongest brand in its category on BrandAsset Valuator; Bronze, Effie Awards Europe 2025 (Multi-Market Retail).
What you can take
When price-led positioning reads as 'cheap', move the conversation from what you charge to what you finish — and if it crosses borders, cut the words before the offer.
Since then
The campaign became the scalable platform for jem & fix's Nordic expansion: by the time of the 2025 Effie award, the chain was the strongest brand in its category on BrandAsset Valuator, with double-digit brand-search growth across all three markets. The 'Get It Fixed' universe continued as the brand's master idea — films, visual identity and in-store behavior all built on the same finish-the-job promise.
Sources
- Get It Fixed — jem & fix (Effie Awards Europe case study)
- Syv danske priser – de to af guld – ved stor europæisk effektpris
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