With more than 1B users and 95M photos shared every day on the platform, Instagram has become ubiquitous for both people and brands alike. For IKEA, the connection with the audience exists quite naturally. Every two seconds, a fan shares a photo of their IKEA interior on the platform, representing an almost endless inspiration source and authentic content for the brand.

So, when IKEA Belgium wanted to further increase user-generated content around its brand, we set out to work to come up with a new idea to spark interest.

With the task of stimulating user-generated content, we wondered how we could boost an already high level of participation around the brand, while ensuring that the shared content used the Belgian IKEA hashtags and tagged the brand Instagram profile.

Therefore, we decided to identify what motivated people to share IKEA content in the first place. We wanted to understand the mechanics behind social conversations and the thinking behind UGC. We ran a social listening analysis around all content tagged with IKEA. Quickly, we realized we were constantly faced with the same four items: 6.9M #Mug, 5.4M #Lamp, 658K #Shelf and 234K #PlantPot.

Our idea was then to create a one-off object that would be the most instagrammable thing in the world: the MÜPOLASH, a contraction of MUg, POt, LAmp & SHelf. Existing in physical and virtual form, the MÜPOLASH was aimed at generating conversation around the brand all across Belgium.

By measuring the volume of social media posts surrounding the brand on IKEA, we were able to identify what interested our audience and decided to combine the four major trends into one single item.

Additionally, because this object took its roots on Instagram, it had to live on Instagram. Our campaign started by explaining what the MÜPOLASH was, then we followed-up with a participative layer featuring an augmented reality filter available through Stories, making IKEA one of the first advertisers in Belgium to use this technology. By using this filter in their own environment, customers were invited to tag @IKEABelgium and the two campaign hashtags (#MonIKEA & #MijnIKEA) to win one of the five physical copies of the object.

Further than giving birth to the idea of the MÜPOLASH, the collected data also helped inform its material creation. By 3D printing the object from 100% biodegradable material - highlighting IKEA’s engagement for sustainability - it allowed us to replicate the exact design of the original Ikea objects. 3D printing also allowed us to tailor the proportions and colour based on the analysed data and volume of hashtags, making then the mug bigger than the lamp for example.

Thanks to a simple social media approach and an idea that included audience participation at its core, we invited local (and international) IKEA fans to take part in this campaign. But with a limited media budget, we mostly relied on the idea’s creative potential to stimulate word of mouth.

Thanks to a relevant audience targeting, we managed to reach 979.196 people on Instagram with our campaign. But further than just being made aware of the campaign, 13% of our reached users had an interaction with our filter, through organic exposure in people’s Stories.

This is where true value of this campaign takes on its full meaning. The earned impressions and reach were ultimately what IKEA was after. With 127K users were reached through earned media, we beat our estimate by over 10% and made the MÜPOLASH famous across the country.

By spotting a trend on Instagram and making it come to life in the users’ hands and screens, we bridged the gap between the virtual and physical environments. We also made something Instagram had never seen before, just from observing what Instagram sees all the time.