IKEA Matchers Keepers
Inter IKEA Systems
Issue 47 | June 2018
Agency
72andSunny Amsterdam
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Carlo Cavallone Executive Creative Director Stuart Harkness Creative Director Gregg Clampffer Writer Jorgen Sibbern Integrated Producer Tobin Naggeotte Designers Christian Baur, Matteo Galinelli, David Neevel, Josh Harris
Production Team
Director of Production Stephanie Oakley Producer Melissa Saraceno Producer George Ancock Concept Development SPACE10 Film Production Mr Frank Director, MR Frank Ben Reed Audio Post Stainless Sound Post Production Glasswords Amsterdam AR APP Development TWNKLS UX/UI Design Norgram Sound Design Stainless Sound UI Animations 72andSunny Amsterdam
Other Credits
Group Brand Director Lauren Portelli Brand Director Mike Beer Comms Strategy Director Michael Roberts Director of Comms Strategy Simon Summerscales Business Affairs Manager Therese Spillane PR Allison+Partners
Date
March 2018
Background
Choosing furniture is often a classic source of tension for people living together. IKEA research showed that nearly half their customers returned a product at some stage or other. To promote the launch of the augmented reality app IKEA Place on Android, an offbeat three-episode game show was created, which got couples and housemates to try to match their taste in furniture.
Idea
The show began with an episode dedicated to the most important item to get right; the sofa. It was hosted by lifestyle blogger Caroline Solomon (aka @lowcheekbones) in a deliberately cheesy style, a pastel-coloured version of popular TV shows like ‘The Newlywed game’. Two-minute YouTube films showed contestants using the IKEA Place app to select and place items of furniture in their homes. If both chose the same item, they got to keep it. The first video showed two female housemates competing to choose a couch. Other episodes involved couples trying to match their taste in lamps and desks. Why lamps and desks? Because both these items get higher volumes of search enquiries than other IKEA products.
While having fun with the disagreements people always have over furnishing their homes, the game showcases the practical benefits of the app.
Results
The films have amassed over 500,000 views across owned platforms to date with an organic retention rate of 85%, well above the average, which hovers at around 50%.
IKEA Place for Androids is being installed as frequently as the iOS version. Average dwell-time with the app is over four minutes, four minutes of playing with an IKEA item.
Our Thoughts
If you’re going to create content for YouTube, this is how to do it. Start with the audience. What sort of shows do they like watching? (Shows that test how well husbands/wives and partners/pals know each other.) Now can you create something similar for your brand? (It turns out you can.) Is there an influencer who will bring an audience with her for the mini-series you create? (Yes, and she’s called Caroline Solomon.)
It will be interesting to see if IKEA continue to invest in the property they have now created, with a string of more shows. If they decide the numbers of views don’t justify it, what have they lost? Not a lot. This experiment would have cost a fraction of the cost of a traditional TV film and might possibly even take off.
That’s what YouTube offers. The opportunity to start small and scale up if the idea gets traction. You can try out a new and different approach without spending a fortune and, if it flops, without too many of the bigwigs at company HQ noticing.