IKEA - Time for Change

Occupy IKEA

Occupy to get attention, occupy to claim your rights. Sometimes, not always, this is a strategy that pays back… At least it did in this case in Portugal, where TBWA staged an occupation of the IKEA’s store in Lisbon to spread the news of its newly launched online store also serving the island of Madeira.

The case study is pretty fun to watch, and it works pretty nicely both to tell the story of what happened as well as to get cool buzz around the Swedish brand that, once again, proved to be really good in both ambient and digital marketing.

IKEA in London’s Regent’s Canal

IKEA used the idea of the floating Asian market and made a little market of its own at London’s Regent’s Canal. To get an exclusive preview of the new furniture range (which is this year mostly concentrated on bright colors and textiles), visitors could hop on a boat at dusk and enjoy a beautiful night show of floating boats showcasing colorful furniture.

IKEA Hotel Chains

IKEA plans to expand its business segment and build a hundred affordable boutique hotels across Europe.

The company that once built an apartment in Parisian metro now seeks to satisfy thousands of budget travelers “in markets where it is already active in property, such as the UK, Netherlands, and Poland, as well as new markets such as Germany,” and the first locations are to open in 2014, says Financial Times. Additionally, the company is intended to build student residences for colleges and universities across Europe.

The hotels will not use the name of IKEA as its hostel built in Norway in 2007, which was a place where shoppers could sleep overnight if they weren’t time to finish buying IKEA products.
The details of the new project are not disclosed yet but it’s known that the hotels will feature budget furniture but are expected to be designed as exclusive boutiques. The hotels will not be run by the retailer but by an experienced hotel operator.

“We will announce within a few weeks the first location for our budget hotel in Germany and we are in talks with hotel operators to rapidly implement our concept,” Harald Müller, a senior manager in Inter Ikea’s property division, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany.

IKEA toilet during Milan Design Fair

IKEA has this very nice tradition of creatively using space in order to promote their brand and products, and they didn’t do differently this time: at the Milan Design Fair they brilliantly used a place that they knew every human being at the expo will reluctantly come to sooner or later (a chemical toilet) as a doorway to a much bigger, better and more comfortable 20 square meter bathroom, all furnished in IKEA, yet again showing how expanding space is almost always possible with them.

Not only is this a very creative idea, it also scores extra points with the customers, as this little promotion surely won’t be forgotten by the people that reconciled with the fact that they are about to use one of the most awful objects you could use, and instead stepped in to this spa like heaven (compared to the portable toilet). As the video says, It was a real (s)hit.

IKEA TV

IKEA has announced the launch of the IKEA TV—a LED TV integrated into furniture. Named Uppleva, what means experience in Swedish, the device consists of a TV screen, a sound system with bass speakers, an internet connection and CD, DVD and Blu-ray players made by Chinese manufacturer TCL.

Uppleva was designed to solve the problem of dozens of cables too—now they are hidden within the furniture. Users can operate the TV using a single remote, which signals can come through the specially created furniture. The TV screens are available in four different sizes, from 24 inches to 46 inches, and in tree colors: gray, black and blue. Users can also plug in their mp3 music players. The speakers are wireless and can be placed to any part of the room.

Priced at about 6,500 Swedish kronor ($955), Uppleva will hit the IKEA stores in Sweden, France, Poland, Germany and Italy in June, and later roll out on a few more markets. By the first half of 2013 it will be available worldwide.

Before designing the TV, IKEA has made a research to study the market demand for it. According to the poll conducted by YouGov, three out of four people prefer less visible cables in their living rooms and 50 percent wanted to reduce the amount of electronics devices in their houses, reports Associated Press.

“We’ve realized that people are watching more TV and are using electronics in their living rooms more and more,” IKEA spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson said. “We came up with this because we found that people want to get rid of the cables and they don’t want those mountains of remote controls either.”

Once again...IKEA found another creative and interesting solution!

IKEA ‘Snap a Napper’

And yes, one more brilliant idea from IKEA!

IKEA has been promoting its affordable furniture with a variety of approaches, from creating a home cozy space with sofas and bookcases in a subway station to initiating a discussion on who is messier, men or women. The brand is determined to help us enjoy every minute spent at home—in the living room or in the kitchen, in the morning or at night. Now IKEA is rolling out a competition dubbed ‘Snap a Napper’ which is revolving around night time and healthy sleep. The retailer is offering its UK consumers, members of IKEA Family, an opportunity to win a packages of sleeping goods including a bed, a mattress, pillows, a quilt and a quilt cover and more, for just snapping people who have fallen asleep in the daytime in public places.        

“Know someone that tends to doze off when they shouldn’t? Are they more sleeping beast than sleeping beauty? Take a picture and share it with us. You could both win everything you need to sleep like a princess in our exclusive IKEA FAMILY competition,” says the brand. The funny photos of people how are taking a nap are to be uploaded to the IKEA UK Facebook page—to be among the five finalists, an entrant has to collect as many ‘likes’ as possible, the voting is running until April 20. IKEA will select one winner from the five top-rated photos, and provide the napper and the snapper with the ‘full package’ for a perfect sleep, all worth up to £1500 each.

'Happy Inside' IKEA

It is not like IKEA is my favourite brand. Nope, it is actually not.
But I just want to make it memorable here about 3 of my favourite IKEA's campaigns: tv commercial (2010), PR stunt (2011) and a facebook campaign (2009).

Firstly, it is the IKEA 2010 'Cats' commercial. I just love it!

"The idea behind the work is that cats know better than anything what makes them feel happy inside, they live their lives in pursuit of their own comfort," Feh Tarty, Mother's creative director, told The Guardian.

The advertising agency behind the commercial, London-based Mother, also released a "making-of" video, below, that has proven to be more popular than the commercial itself, garnering more than 2 million views on YouTube in just two weeks.

IKEA

The latest my university work was the case study/report about the IKEA. One of the problems, that I have stated is 'adhering to the IKEA way' - well, the case study we were given was from 2002, so we all know now where IKEA is as a brand currently. But at the time of the case study, it was the problem.

And I feel the irony when looking at one of the recent news articles - 'Ikea’s Simple Solution To Making Every Mitten Touchscreen Friendly' - I watched a video and it made me smile. Why? Because in my report I wrote that 'Adhering to IKEA way means that the company is adapting the environment to IKEA, but not the IKEA to the environment' [when expanding to another country]. And it was a disadvantage (I realise though, that it is the company's core value and etc., but in terms of internalisation in Asia in 2002 it was a disadvantage!)

However, watching this particular video...made me think that whenever IKEA does and how crazy those ideas are, it is a success. It is some kind of disruption. A disruption in a nice way. 

Just watch it and realise how smart they are to adapt everyone to 'the IKEA way'.

(Beröra means “to touch” in Swedish)

I have also noticed, that I feel a different interest to those companies that I have been investigating when working on different university projects :)