CHECK IN IKEA

TitleCHECK IN IKEA
BrandIKEA
Product / ServiceIKEA FURNITURE
CategoryA04. Travel, Leisure, Retail, Restaurants & Fast Food Chains
EntrantSTARCOM Taipei City, TAIWAN
Idea Creation STARCOM Taipei City, TAIWAN
Media Placement STARCOM Taipei City, TAIWAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Silvia Wu Jet-Go Consulting Group Vice Director

Why is this work relevant for Media?

Check in IKEA campaign has demonstrated it was grounded in a real understanding of IKEA’s business challenge, and created a solution that was insightful, unexpected, and experience-driven. Instead of letting consumers try stuff in a congested store, we created series of experiential activities by cooperating with an existing hotel and created unique recommendations for IKEA solutions for every family. Also, we leverage the influence of celebrities and youtuber to embrace and overcome diversity and inclusion lifestyle concerns then created scale with those experiences thru social posts, dynamic creative and documentary video.

Background

IKEA is known for its furnishing inspirations and gallery-style display, showcasing the products in a realistic setting, brings an element of imagination into shopping experience. However, enhancing quality perception is a huge challenge for a stereotype of low-price and fast furniture image. A recent report pointed out that physical experience is the major reason of why consumers concerned about durability of IKEA products. People used to do searches for what they wanted to buy before they went to store but there were many negative online reviews and comments which have a serious impact on IKEA businesses. This lead consumers to think all IKEA products are good for decoration only but not for real life so we needed to completely upend their expectations and create a unique brand experience that IKEA can offer everyone a reliable and personalized solution to build a dream room by different living situations.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

After understood that quality/durability as the core issue impacting IKEA business, we aimed to create a physical experience of the IKEA product in fairly aspirational settings to address the lack of quality/durability perception. So we unlocked a powerful idea which was to partner with hotels to create spaces where people could hang out on and sleep on IKEA furniture which meeting people on their needs but in a way that challenged their perceptions of IKEA (and also was totally unexpected). To create scale of this campaign to all Taiwanese, we also leveraged data signals to deliver dynamic creatives of different rooms in hotel demonstrating our brand spirit of making space for every family.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

The strategy had four pillars: First, we targeted all kinds of families to experience our room solutions and provide them with more inspiration in their real life and invited celebrities and Youtubers helped curate and personalize room designs, and we leveraged their online profiles to embrace and overcome diversity and inclusion lifestyle concerns. Second, we designed a series of experiential activities by cooperating with an existing hotel to renovate their rooms with our wide range of products and holding consumer event at IKEA hotel for 3 months. Then, using consumers' signals appearing from their daily life and dynamic creatives, we created unique recommendations for IKEA solutions for every family with a link to register online for the free sleepover and interactive events. Finally, this event was filmed as a documentary video and exposed on Youtube and Facebook, so we could amplify it to all people in Taiwan.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

1. For creating an in-depth experience of IKEA products to feel product quality firsthand, we cooperated with YOMI hotel and developed 9 rooms with different lifestyles and all used IKEA products in rooms’ constructions. 2. Later, we launched the first IKEA Pop-up hotel in Asia by providing sleepover activities for consumers to sign up for one free night sleep and designing experiential games for each room to make visitors better understand/experience the comfort and room solutions during the visiting journey. 3. For strengthening influence of this campaign, we also invited celebrities and lots of famous Youtubers as our curators to provided creative ideas for personalized room and leveraged their powers to enlarge our media exposure everywhere. 4. And we leveraged the real insight of TA and pushed the relevant messages targeting on different living situation and using dynamic creative optimization to deliver our brand spirit of making space for everyone.

List the results (30% of vote)

The campaign became an overnight sensation, with engagement and reach 306% and 209% better than average respectively. We generated PR worth almost 2 million US dollars from 431 news reports and more than 1,300 online discussions in just 7 days. Our documentary video was with VTR significant +30% higher than market average, at the same time, our Dynamic Creative Optimization campaign presenting tailor-made messages generated double the click through with cost-per- click 41% lower than market average. 40% of total accommodations who further purchase at IKEA stores and created extra 90K US dollars sales after their stay at IKEA pop-up hotel. Most importantly, this led to a 10%+ visitation and received a 78%+ increased on quality perception.

Links

Video URL