How does a retail brand bridge the gap between its (huge) mental availability and (tiny) physical availability in a nation of a thousand islands – when it can’t build more stores?

For IKEA Philippines, the breakthrough was in bringing the IKEA experience to Filipino fans who couldn't visit its only store!

By recognizing the strong role of media channels in purchasing behavior, we created an immersive experience powered by a multi-channel strategy. This created over 900 retail ‘sampling’ locations that led shoppers to IKEA.ph. This generated a 30% increase in website transactions and the brand’s strongest e-commerce performance yet.

Philippines: A retailer’s nightmare

As an archipelago nation of 7,107 islands, retail expansion is exceedingly difficult in the Philippines because:

- Key urban cities are separated by hours of air/sea travel

- Key cities are extremely congested and public transportation is underdeveloped

- New entrants & independent retailers are threatened by the few major retail players that have stronger leverage for expansion

Filipinos: What’s near me will win me

More than quality or affordability, the key business driver of the home furnishing category is accessibility. Top players win through a large retail footprint or distribution in malls nationwide. Challenged with mobility in highly-congested cities, Filipino shoppers default to whatever store is nearest to them.

E-commerce: A rapidly emerging channel

73% of the home furnishing category comprises miscellaneous players, mostly mom-and-pop vendors in e-commerce platforms. E-commerce, led by Shopee and Lazada, is quickly becoming a key channel for home furnishing shopping.

Altogether, IKEA Philippines’ prospects for growth seemed dim given the logistical constraints against physical expansion and the mental availability taken up by its offline and online competitors.

In 2021, IKEA opened its first store in the Philippines with a vision “to create a better everyday life for the many people.”

However, with only one store against 7,107 islands, they could not reach many Filipinos. Unable to open new stores, they joined ecommerce.

Hence, the brand is dependent on IKEA.ph for business growth. Unfortunately, website performance has remained flat due to poor awareness, intense competition, and the proliferation of fake IKEA stores.

Hence, the ff objectives:

-Business: Grow sales despite physical store limitations

-Marketing: Drive IKEA.ph website activity

-Communications: Drive awareness for IKEA.ph as the go-to alternative to the one physical IKEA store

Media Insight:"The medium is the checkout counter"

The rise of shoppable ads is now shortening the purchase journey and turning media into valuable retail real estate. With IKEA’s challenge of physical accessibility, a disruptive shoppable ad campaign could quickly scale its presence in the Philippines.

IKEA is all about bringing its wide-ranging catalogue to life, inviting shoppers to see, touch, and experience their dream spaces.

This shifted our perspective: More than product accessibility, the gap we truly needed to bridge was experience accessibility.

So we thought: Fans can’t come to IKEA? Then we’ll bring the shop to them!

By determining the high foot traffic spaces across the country, we leveraged on the most impactful media channels that will grab attention and deliver a reimagined store experience wherever Filipinos are.

Ths led to the creation and deployment of an iconic “This is an IKEA store” in various online and offline touchpoints to recreate the IKEA shopping experience. The visual had a QR code that led to IKEA.ph, closing the shopper’s path to purchase."

Our target audience are families, couples, and single homeowners in the ABC+ segment. Based on social media scans, they aspire to shop at IKEA, but have yet to do so because they think it’s inaccessible.

The challenge was to meet them where they are, showing them they can walk into an “IKEA store” wherever they are.

Key audience insights that informed our touchpoint selection:

Urban-dwellers:

- We identified spots relevant to their lifestyle and interests such salons, gyms, food establishments, and clinics

- We turned Grab cars (the country’s biggest ride-hailing service) into roving ads around the city

- We identified cities where customers with a high propensity to buy live

Values experiences with friends and family:

- We hijacked outdoor sites such as beaches, resorts, and camping sites

Avid social media users:

- We selected a range of influencers who were popular amongst our audience

Within three months, 927 new “IKEA stores” were recreated across online & offline touchpoints.

OFFLINE

To deliver the full IKEA experience:

IKEA placed actual products in public places such as restaurants, salons, gyms, clinics, and beaches. Each piece of furniture had real IKEA price tags that led shoppers to purchase via IKEA.ph.

To buy IKEA from anywhere:

OOH:E-jeepneys, Grab cars, and billboards on major commute routes were turned into IKEA stores via stickers.

To multiply IKEA stores:

In-store:Stickers were given away to encourage customers to put up their own “IKEA store.”

ONLINE

To creatively personalize their IKEA experiences:

Instagram:IG stickers enabled IKEA fans to turn their posts into IKEA stores.

PR & Influence:In what became a country-wide easter egg hunt, a slate of influencers searched for and documented our IKEA stores. Their content too became IKEA stores.

Geo-targeted ads hit consumers with tailored comms, turning whole cities into IKEA stores.

Communications:

We recreated 18x IKEA stores using the activation cost to mount ONE pop-up store (based on previous marketing effort)

New website visitors: 14% increase versus same period last year (compared to previous year performance of -30%)

Website visits: 12% increase versus same period last year (compared to previous year performance of -36%)

Influencer posts: Over-delivered by 185% in reach and 238% in engagement

Total Reach of Campaign: 46,651,823

Marketing:

Volume of e-commerce transactions: 30% increase versus same period last year (compared to previous year performance of -17%) – the highest volume of e-comm transactions to date

Business:

Website visitation: 101% achievement versus target

Website revenue: 8% growth versus same period last year – an all-time high revenue for IKEA.ph.

Through combined brand and media data, we identified cities and rural locations where foot traffic and demands for IKEA were high. These data guided the placements of the IKEA “stores”, letting us hijack locations relevant to our audience’s interests (i.e. salons for mom-centric neighborhoods, gyms and cafes near condo communities, clinics near villages with older families).