We look for places that IKEA can capitalise on culture and deliver its “style, democratised” message. One way to do that is poking fun at the out-of-reach world of luxury.

From Harry Styles wearing a suit that resembled an IKEA duvet to GoT costume designers using LUDDE rugs in the show.

We spot them, react to them and use social channels to fuel the fire before we take the conversation to social-first and mainstream media.

It gives us an opportunity to show the brand’s witty side, demonstrating how it remains an (inter)national treasure and keeps it part of the cultural fabric.

We roast luxury excess to generate cultural talkability, respond in real-time to the cultural conversation and ensure that IKEA is the voice of reason in what is all-too-often a world that has lost its mind.

We responded to Balenciaga announcing its £695 (or relevant local currency) Towel Skirt with our own suggestion, an image shot in an identical style featuring our own VINARN Towel Skirt for the princely sum of £16.

It was a sure-fire hit. On-time, on-point and pricking the absurdities of high fashion.

The insight is that IKEA has the opportunity to deliver a commercial message using its "For the many people" brand platform whenever luxury fashion jumps the proverbial shark. Real people are happy to laugh along when IKEA gives them a voice.

We do it to demonstrate IKEA's unreasonable value of course. But also to make the brand part of culture and part of the conversations our customers are having. That is particularly critical when it comes to reaching the Gen-Z core for the brand, recruiting a new generation of brand fans who are social-first in their media consumption and want brands to speak their language on their platforms - adding to the cultural conversation rather than hi-jacking it.

We created a pastiche of Balenciaga's shot and had it out on owned social channels within hours. From there we ensured the image was shared with social-first publishers and editorial.

We spotted Balenciaga’s “Towel Skirt” when it hit the brand’s Instagram page.

We nipped out to the Hammersmith store, scooping up some sunnies, a hoodie and some combat pants along the way. Within an hour we had a set of photos for the brand’s Instagram channels ready to go.

The UK post immediately caught fire.

Fashion Instagram and fashion TikTok took up the story – congratulating IKEA’s “trolling” of the luxury brand.

As the story went global we posted the images across IKEA local country pages to ensure we were at the heart of the action worldwide.

We took the story to editorial titles to push the story into the social-first titles we knew would reach our audience, drive reach and spark further conversation.

There were just shy of 1000 pieces of editorial – with accompanying social shares across media titles’ platforms.

Owned Social

The post on @IKEAUK Instagram became the brand’s most successful ever. There were 49,900 engagements, it was saved over 3,000 times and it reached over 655,000 unique users on the platform.

Organic Social

There were over 100 posts about the campaign across TikTok as users praised IKEA’s response. Tracked posts were viewed 32 million times generating over 2.6 million engagements. Reach was in excess of 15 million across the network.

On Instagram there were over 140 posts sharing IKEA’s “beef” with posts from RAP (240k engagements), Complex (150k engagements), Hypebeast (100k engagements), Clips (54k engagements), Gossiproomoff (82.5k engagements), Worldly.IT (32k engagements) and more besides.

We reached over 25 million accounts across the network and delivered over 1.03 million engagements.

The story went wild across X with over 50,000 posts and 27 million impressions 24 hours after the IKEA image hit its social channels. We provoked 50,000+ posts with zero media spend or influencer fees reaching over 40 million unique users across social and generating 5.7 million engagements.

Editorial

The social media fun prompted almost 1000 pieces of editorial coverage reaching 900 million people with those editorial articles being shared over 2,000 times. Highlights included a clean-sweep of Gen-Z hype and fashion titles alongside lifestyle media worldwide.

Commercial Impact

Research discovered 57% of GenZ UK consumers saw the campaign. 87% said it improved their impression of the brand. Searches for the VINARN towel rose 98% daily on the UK website for the week following the campaign.