Outset

IKEA was building a large store near Rothenburg (Central Switzerland). However, the store was already the ninth in Switzerland. So nothing new. How could IKEA nevertheless generate awareness for the opening? An involving idea was demanded to gain broad awareness and stimulate traffic at the opening days.

Strategic approach

No other furnishing store offers so many ideas for home improvement and is therefore able to inspire like IKEA. To prove this, we decided to involve local people and invented a fictional “problem”: Due to the amount of inspiring ideas, Ikea was running out of space. So we started looking for people prepared to loan their flats as private showrooms. A win-win situation: While IKEA would get additional exhibition space, flat owners would get a complete makeover of their places and be allowed to keep the furniture.

Creative work

IKEA used classified ads to find people prepared to lend their flats as exhibition space. Within hours, over 300 people registered online, offering their flats. The selected participants were announced in the local press and also portrayed in ATL communications. Then the participants left their apartments and the transformation started. On the website, consumers were able watch the designers turning the apartments into elegant exhibition space.

After six weeks, the owners returned to their apartments. The public was also allowed to visit the private showrooms and either access them virtually on the website or even visit them in real. Once again, the happy participants were featured in communications. Rothenburg now was ready for the big opening day.

Results

The response to the "space problem" was unexpectedly high. Local media joined the conversation and the PR effects swelled the original media budget by 75%. (Source: Press monitoring)

IKEA became talk-of-the-town: During the first phase, 57’000 visitors were registered on the website and during the second, 320’000 virtual tours were taken. Finally, people were queuing up to get a glimpse at the apartments in real. (Source: Google Analytics)

The opening of the IKEA store attracted 27% more visitors than expected. More than 17‘000 people visited the opening day and even 45‘000 visitors were counted during the first five days. This meant a tremendous commercial success: In the first week, sales exceled projections by 21% and in the following weeks, sales were still 26% over expectations. The success even solved our “problem”: after a few days, many items were already sold out. (Source: IKEA)