Batibouw is the biggest construction fair in Belgium. All major construction and decoration brands are present. IKEA had high hopes for this period and wanted to boost kitchen sales both in-store and through its web shop. Yet, as a home furnishing generalist, IKEA is not known to have high-quality kitchens. How could IKEA stand out from kitchen specialists?

To truly enjoy your kitchen, it has to get dirty every once in a while. So, since IKEA kitchens have a unique 25-year warranty, we invited people to let their kitchen suffer. After throwing a dinner party, your kitchen may look like a crime scene. To demonstrate its quality, we transformed one IKEA kitchen into a Kitchen Crime Scene. Through all kinds of mysterious clues, people could guess which dish was prepared and had the possibility to win a fancy dinner made by a chef in their own home.

When looking at the competition, kitchens are often shown as this spotless place in the house. The reality could not be more different. Dirty plates, stains on the floor, a clogged sink, … To enable people to enjoy their kitchen, we needed to communicate on a more emotional level. So, since IKEA kitchens have a unique 25-year warranty, we decided to go for a different approach and invited people who showed interest in the Batibouw fair and in kitchens to make their kitchen suffer.

We wanted people to explore IKEA’s kitchen products and interact with its web shop in a refreshing and fun way. In an online video on the dedicated website we showed a kitchen as a real crime scene and challenged people to guess the dish that was prepared. On that website, clues could be found through product shots and testimonies, which were also shared on social media. Via the e-newsletter we invited IKEA Family members to join in the quest. Additional traffic was generated through innovative tools which were used for the first time, such as Google Smart Display, which maximises performance by using an algorithm to decide the format and channel, and S4M, which focuses on mobile bannering to identify and charge incremental qualitative visits. Broad-reach media such as print and radio were used to reinforce the quality promise of IKEA.

The campaign resulted in 34,900 unique website visits and 4,390 participants, 3,046 of which were converted via email. On average, people spent a whopping 1’43” on the website. IKEA outperformed the kitchen sales, both in-store and online, by no less than 7%. By not being physically present at the Batibouw fair, IKEA grabbed the opportunity to highlist its kitchen products through online channels and to boost its web shop sales.