Like many brands, Ikea jumps on viral trends, but it’s about 10 years late to the party.
The retail giant’s latest campaign promotes its revamped loyalty program, Ikea Family, which has just launched in its home country of Sweden and is expected to reach all of its markets by end of this year.
While a points-based rewards program isn’t a revolutionary concept for a retailer, Ikea sticks to the maxim that it’s better late than never.
With a dose of conscious humor, Ikea conveys this message by relaunching three challenges on social networks that were fashionable around ten years ago.
The ads, created by Swedish agency Åkestam Holst NoA, show Ikea employees tackling the Harlem Shake (a viral moment from 2013 in which groups of people dance to a clip of the song “Harlem Shake”) ) ; the Mannequin Challenge (the 2016 trend in which participants freeze themselves in a model-like pose); and the Bottle Flip (a 2016 phenomenon where people threw a partially filled bottle into the air and tried to make it land vertically).
Ikea’s spots exploit the popularity of nostalgia marketing, with brands of Old Navy has Lipton Iced Teahas Planters recently relaunching the cultural trends of the 1990s and 2000s.
Retailer Ikea has a long history of cheeky marketing. In October, it launched a global campaign, also led by Åkestam Holst, to promote its range of energy-saving products. The ads depicted comparable scenarios in which people struggled with seemingly simple tasks, like closing a coat or unlocking a front door.
