Buzz about the beds
ADVenture: A weekly column examining popular advertising campaigns. The product: Mattresses at Ikea The ad campaign: Ikea has launched an ad campaign which has a variety of different kinds of ads designed for TV, radio, print (newspapers and magazines), a micro-site on their web page and a guerrilla marketing stunt to create buzz about their mattresses. The stunt involved having people sleeping (or trying to) on Ikea mattresses all over downtown Toronto in a one-day event this fall. The micro site offers our first view of the Ikea guy, who until now has merely been a voice. The rationale: "A lot of people don’t realize that we do have a mattress program and we wanted to address the misconception that we only have European sizes (which we haven’t had for 15 years). This is the first time we have tried using (Ikea guy’s) likeness. It’s that brand recognition that comes with his voice. He will not have a name. You don’t want the attention to be on the personality, you want it to be on the product. " - Madeleine Lowenborg-Frick, Ikea spokesperson Creative ad agency: Zig, Toronto and Trapeze (Toronto) for the micro-site The chat: "I am a big advocate of buzz marketing (or word-of-mouth marketing - tactics employed to get consumers talking - including guerrilla marketing). When brand communications come from another consumer (as opposed to brand advertising), the message is more credible and often more relevant. "What I especially like about this campaign, though, is the multi-media, multi-tactic approach. The guerrilla marketing mattresses-on-the-street exploit wasn’t a one-off. It was integrated with similar messages across other media. "Kudos to Ikea. It is common sense, but shamefully uncommon for marketers to create campaigns that are truly integrated. The tone of the message is irreverent, quirky and helpful-consistent with Ikea’s brand image, and interestingly, yet consistently communicated across their print advertising, television spots, their website, etc. " I think I like (the Ikea guy). I wonder if consumers will want to get to know him better … what is his name? And can I send him my sleep-related questions? The other option would have been for Ikea to simply announce, "We sell mattresses too!". Instead, they chose to focus on a true consumer benefit-helping consumers sleep better. This may be the ideal positioning for them, in the short term at least. I wonder if the "sleep coach" " - Andrea Wojnicki, assistant professor of marketing, Rotman School of Business, University of Toronto "I think that to appreciate what Ikea has done here, you have to first appreciate the size of the challenge they’ve given themselves. "Mattresses are mostly a commodity product, save for perhaps one market dominant retail brand that positions itself as specialized. That’s a tough market to break into because you’re going to be hard pressed to make money attacking the commodity end of the market and hard pressed to be taken seriously against a brand like Sleep Country. "Whatever Ikea may stand for in the fevered minds of its agency or in the sanctity of its boardroom, to the consumer it’ ’s tough to imagine beating Leon’s ‘No Payments Until The Apocalypse’ pricing. Given all of that, they did everything right. They chose to position themselves as experts, the most likely of the two difficult options. They fought the established competitive brand with substantial information. "The guerrilla marketing day was a smart move, where so often these things are just meant to gratify the marketer. Because this initiative was in some sense off-brand for Ikea, they had to demand attention. "The danger in trying to take a brand into new positioning territory is that you could lose the brand in the process. The Ikea guy is plainly meant to be continuity, designed to recall and connect with whatever good feelings you might have about the brand. "All in all, a smart, thoughtful, grown-up effort." - Bruce Philp, Brand Engineering, Toronto
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