The Other Letter
IKEA
Issue 36 | September 2015
Agency
McCann Madrid
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Mo´nica Moro Executive Creative Director Jon Lavi´n Art Directors Raquel Marti´nez, Fernando Cerezo, Ruben Martinez Copywriters Ana Gan~an, Juan Manuel Sepulveda
Date
December 2014
Background
IKEA wanted to remind their core target audience of the real importance of Christmas in family life and to point out how mad it had become, with parents paying vast sums of money to buy their kids presents they rarely needed and often didn't want.
Idea
An experiment was performed with 10 families. The kids, aged between four and nine, were asked to write a letter to the Three Wise Men (just as children in other parts of the world write to Santa Claus) telling them what they wanted.
And they wanted dolls, iPads, consoles, games, all sorts of things.
Then they were invited to write to their parents, telling them what they wanted for Christmas. And they all wanted the same thing. To spend more time as a family.
Results
More than 4.6m views of the video within two days. Over 9m people shared the link on Facebook and Twitter, where it was retweeted 4,318 times. It was discussed in over 120 online sites as well as covered by national radio and TV stations.
Increased footfall in IKEA stores was attributed directly to the campaign.
Our Thoughts
If you haven't seen it, the video is at http://youtu.be/EQ3ePGr8Q7k
I have to report that, as a Dad, it struck an immediate chord. We make up for our deficiencies as parents by throwing money at our kids. And what they want from us is our time.
In terms of trying to change behaviours, #likeagirl, which won two Grands Prix, seven Golds and one of the new Glass Lions, was the pre-eminent campaign of the year. But for this to win absolutely nothing is a travesty.