IKEA Canada
"House Rules"
While Canadians love Ikea in their 20s and 30s, when they start thinking about and having families of their own, they reach a point where they believe they've outgrown the brand. These new families take Ikea off their consideration list, replacing it with the growing number of furniture and home décor stores.
With the growth of independent urban specialty retailers and home décor available at unexpected places like bookstores, Canadians age 35-plus are confronted with redecorating opportunities at every turn, pushing Ikea out from their circle of consideration.
As families change and grow, they're re-evaluating their lives and wondering if Ikea is right for them, and if they are right for Ikea.To show that the retailer has the range and quality that meets the needs of every household, the agency needed to show that the brand understands what modern families live like. The insight centered on an often-overlooked truth: that every home has its own unique behaviour and unwritten rules.
From this insight, "Ikea #HouseRules" was created and a forum was opened for the brand to receive and share all of the unique and interesting ways Canadians live at home.
"#HouseRules" launched with a 60-second spot and kicked off the conversation, encouraging Canadians to share their own house rules with Ikea. Leo Burnett then collected these rules from social media, visualized them beautifully online and organized them by each room in the home.
The most popular and most liked rules were incorporated in the brand's mass advertising. On social platforms, the brand posted the most debated house rules, asking Canadians how they felt about them and to share their own. The brand surprised some participants with Ikea gifts that connected with their personal rules.
The brand also live-tweeted the "#HouseRules" of popular TV shows during season finales and it invited people to enter radio contests and share their own.
The campaign generated a 12% same-store-sales increase versus the same period a year earlier (with no increase in media spend). By comparison, the home furnishings category saw a 1% increase during this time.
The site generated 26,613 house rules, with visitors to the site spending 3.5 minutes on average reading the house rules of other Canadians. The campaign generated the most engagement of any social campaign Ikea Canada has run to date. But most importantly, key brand metrics among the 35-plusage group hit a turning point, and began trending upward by 9%.
