Post by The Big PINK One♥ on Oct 31, 2010 1:19:11 GMT -5
From nytimes.com
A Focus on Families (and Furniture)
By TANZINA VEGA
WHEN many people think of affordable, self-assembled furniture (and tasty little Swedish meatballs) they think of Ikea.
Long the furniture bastion of college students and studio apartment dwellers, Ikea, the Swedish furniture giant, now wants to help people improve their lives. The tagline for this new message — “The Life Improvement Store” — represents the company’s first major ad campaign in three years and will replace Ikea’s current tagline, “Home Is the Most Important Place in the World,” which began in 2007.
“Ikea was looking for someone to help them articulate who they were in a way an American audience would understand,” said Lars Bastholm, the chief creative officer for Ogilvy & Mather New York, a unit of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, part of WPP. Ikea is working with the agency for the first time.
The new theme is based on the idea that having a custom-designed home can improve a person’s life. Ads will showcase people customizing their homes with Ikea furniture and accessories. Each ad ends with the tagline “Made by” as in “Made by the Johnsons,” and “Designed by Ikea,” to emphasize the personal touches each family can put in their home.
Part of the idea behind the campaign stemmed from the misperceptions about the brand, like the ideas it was something solely for students or lower-income groups or it had a cold European style, Mr. Bastholm said.
“It’s easy to think there’s an Ikea look, which there’s not,” he said. “Some might be decorating a New York studio of 250 square feet and some might be decorating a newly purchased McMansion.”
The estimated spending for the entire year’s campaign is $90 million to $100 million. One television ad features a voice-over of a couple decorating a living room and deciding what type of furniture they should have. As they discuss their options — a comfortable sofa, new lamps, a cowhide rug — the furniture speedily appears and disappears in the room through various mechanical doors in the floor and walls. Satisfied with their room, they eventually settle in to watch television.
The spots began appearing at the end of August on cable networks like Bravo and HGTV and local broadcast stations in 31 markets during shows like “America’s Got Talent” and “Jerseylicious.” Ads featuring other rooms will begin at the end of the month. The production company Brand New School produced the spots.
A print campaign based on the same “Made by” idea will start in the October issues of O, The Oprah Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, and Redbook, among others. Online display ads will begin on Oct. 1 and will be seen on sites like AOL.com, CNN.com and AskMen.com.
Ikea will also begin a national program called “The Life Improvement Project” that will include a microsite and a series of promotional events for both the store’s employees and customers. The project will be broken into three components.
The first is the Life Improvement Sabbatical contest in which Ikea will offer a yearlong sabbatical worth $100,000 to one person who submits the best idea to help improve the lives of others.
“Volunteering at a homeless shelter, a recycling effort in the community, those are the types of projects that we’re looking for,” said Christine Scoma Whitehawk, the communications manager for Ikea North America. “The contest would help people who have the vision themselves but can’t afford to do it,” she added.
The contest begins Tuesday and a panel of judges will pick five finalists. The winner will be chosen by a public vote and will receive life coach sessions with Martha Beck, a columnist at O, and will be featured in the April and July 2011 issues of the magazine.
A series of free events called the Life Improvement Store Seminars will also be given in Ikea stores around the country and will feature hosts from magazines like Family Circle and Cooking Light discussing themes around decorating and designing the home. Some stores will offer seminars hosted by life coaching experts provided by O. The 51 seminars will run from October to July in stores nationwide.
An internal contest, called the Life Improvement Co-Worker Challenge, which gives employees from Ikea’s 37 United States stores the opportunity to win five $10,000 grants to support a local community initiative, was begun last Wednesday. “What we wanted to do is really extend the same opportunity we would give to a consumer to our co-workers,” said Ms. Scoma Whitehawk.
Ikea will begin the microsite on Tuesday, the place for people to send their submissions to the sabbatical contest, vote on which submissions they like best and get updates on the contest itself. The special site, at thelifeimprovementproject.com will also provide information on the location and dates of the in-store seminars.
The company will continue to use its main Web site, Twitter feed and Facebook page to share information about the campaign.
To provide more information on the campaign and its related contest and seminars IKEA has teamed with O, whose magazine, Web site, Facebook page and Twitter feed will host branded content.
Ikea is also aiming at the Hispanic community with simultaneous ads running in digital media and on Spanish-language television stations like Univision and Telemundo during popular shows like “Sábado Gigante” and “Primer Impacto.” Digital banner ads and other sponsorships will run on Univision.com, Terra.com and Batanga.com.
The markets for these ads include cities like Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Miami and Los Angeles. The effort was developed by Ikea’s Hispanic agency of record SCPF in partnership with Ogilvy. An English ad in the “Made by” campaign will also feature a Hispanic family called the Garcias.
