Sweden's Ikea digs deep into the American dream in new brand launch
Swedish home furnishing company Ikea has been in the US for more than 30 years but was recently having trouble penetrating into existing and new markets — mainly because most people associate Ikea with “starting out” or college furniture.
The company sought to overcome these perceptions by working with Ogilvy & Mather to determine how it could align the brand mission to the things in society that people really care about now.
During the campaign research, Ikea uncovered a lot of news stories, surveys, and other data that supported the idea that life at home still hadn't returned to normal since the 2008 recession. In fact, it became apparent that people were living a new normal — one where it was harder to “make it” than ever before.
Ikea's launch of the “We Help You Make It” campaign, which includes advertisements on local TV channels, spots on cable outlets like HGTV and the Food Network, print ads and efforts on social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. The campaign purports to portray the American Dream through images and ads that show “real people in real living situations that anyone could relate to,” Leslie Stone, director of strategic services at Ogilvy & Mather, told The New York Times.
Additionally, based on findings about American consumer preferences gleaned from a study of 2,050 Americans of varying ages, socio-economic statuses, races and genders conducted by The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, this type of modeling allowed them to develop a target composite — called the “life improvers” category. These are people who span across different ages, incomes, and education brackets, but they all have an optimistic, “can do” attitude toward life and want to make things better, the company said.
“Society itself is quite ripe for this message because it is something people are thinking about,” Christine Whitehawk, Ikea’s external communications manager for the US, told The New York Times. “It resonates with people when you do speak to their life situation.”