We scouted out high-traffic pedestrian area locations in the Bay area and picked 3 in San Francisco and 1 in San Jose. On August 28, complete living room sets- from lamp and rug to couch, were set up at these locations. Signs encouraged the pedestrians to “Steal This Furniture”. All the furniture ended up being 'stolen'.

The overall effort was extremely inexpensive, with costs essentially consisting of the permitting, events company, and furniture. It was part of an overall PR campaign that generated some 35,000,000 media impressions. In terms of store traffic (first 5 days) for the Palo Alto Grand Opening, IKEA was 21% over traffic goals.