IKEA decided to open an online store for Madeira Island after receiving requests from a few residents.

IKEA awareness in Madeira was extremely low, but the few who knew it while studying or living in the mainland simply loved it.

To make the enthusiasm of an extremely small group appeal to a broader audience we decided to... 'Occupy IKEA'.

We searched for an 'IKEA Lover Activist' in Madeira willing to fight. Then we helped her Occupy IKEA’s biggest Portuguese store for 2 weeks in a protest to 'convince' IKEA to open a store in Madeira.

Her protest could be followed through a Facebook Page that interacted with other Pages from Madeira and the IKEA official Facebook Page.

IKEA is a brand for the many. It was very important that the citizens of Madeira understood that IKEA was arriving in the Island by people’s request. That it was a consequence of people wanting to have better, more affordable and more beautiful solutions for their homes.

As there was no budget for traditional media, our strategy was to spread the message through social media with the maximum possible buzz.

To amplify the effort we created a Facebook Page for the 'We want IKEA in Madeira now!' movement and use it to interact with the most important Facebook pages from Madeira (specially Media Pages) and our own IKEA official Facebook Page.

The Facebook page "We want IKEA in Madeira now!" had more than 5 million impressions during the campaign and after it ended.

IKEA website visitors acessing from Madeira grew 175% during the first two weeks of the Campaign. And from the moment our Activist announced on Facebook the opening of the online Store, visits sky-rocked, reaching a number five times higher than in the period before.

People from Madeira received the news about the opening of IKEA online store in Madeira as a victory of all, sending numerous welcome messages to IKEA.

To our surprise, other cities in Portugal, Spain, Chile and Brazil, created similar movements using exactly the same expression to open Facebook Pages. Everybody wants an IKEA. Now!