Ikea offers crib discount to pregnant mums who pee on its ad
Ikea has hit upon a sure-fire headline generating ruse after dreaming up an unconventional crib promotion which promises discounted cribs with just one catch – pregnant mothers must pee on the advert to claim their prize.
Elevating toilet reading material to a whole new level the women’s magazine promotion employs colour changing technology as used on pregnancy test kits to reveal a hidden discount code when urine is applied, together with confirmation as to whether the reader happens to be pregnant.
Devised by Swedish ad agency Åkestam Holst in collaboration with Mercene Labs the bodily fluid centric campaign necessitated some novel thinking. Explaining their approach the agency wrote: “In order to make the interactive functions of this ad work in reality, we had to make several technical advancements.
“The pregnancy test strip was used as a starting point, which relies on antibodies that bind to the pregnancy hormone hCG, resulting in a color change. For scaling up of this technique and adopting it to the physical format of a printed ad, Mercene Labs has used their experience in development of surface active materials for microfluidics and medical diagnostics.”
Ikea's urine embrace stands in stark contrast to Dell which hastily changed its manufacturing process after customers complained their shiny new laptops reeked of cat urine.