In the past 20 years, the Nordic region has fostered a distinct place branding scholarship and practice. This paper briefly revisits hallmark contributions that founded and shaped Nordic place branding and argues that by today, the Nordic approach earned widespread international acknowledgement. The Nordic region offers more than a regional context of place branding; its cultural and geo-political idiosyncrasies greatly affect the axiological position of place branding research. By positioning Nordic place branding research on the global scene, the paper outlines the contours of a hybrid scholarly approach (the Nordic wave), which bridges across managerial and critical schools of branding and promotes a more extroverted knowledge collaboration with branding practitioners. The paper concludes with discussing the potential the NordicWave for future place branding endeavours.