Episode 177 - IKEA Hidden Tags Reviewed by XPENG, PensionBee and Defiant
How far would you go to find out how old your IKEA furniture is?
Not that far, unless you’re as inquisitive as the customers depicted in the brand’s Hidden Tags ad and case study, brought to us by Contagious this week.
Yes, the initiative is meant to highlight sustainability and durability, but does it do enough to create context and be relatable for viewers? What was this campaign’s ultimate goal and how can we even tell if they reached it?
Tune in to the latest episode to see the ad and hear reactions from Trine Johansen (Head of Marketing Norway at XPENG), Tom Carter (Senior Performance Marketing Manager at PensionBee), and Will Poskett (Founder of Defiant). What do you think of it?
Episode 177 - IKEA Hidden Tags Reviewed by XPENG, PensionBee and Defiant
Transcript
This is automatically generated, so it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands watch other brands’ ads.
My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder for Automated Creative, the creative effectiveness adtech platform. But before we get to see this week's ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Trine Johansen 0:42
My name is Trine Johansen, and I work as a Head of Marketing for XPENG Motors Norway.
Tom Carter 0:48
I'm Tom Carter, I'm a Senior Performance Marketing Manager at PensionBee.
Will Poskett 0:56
I’m Will Poskett, founder of Defiant, strategy-led creative agency.
Tom Ollerton 1:26
So question is, do you own any IKEA furniture and is it any good? Let's see this week's creative.
How great is this ad on a scale of 1 to 5, using your fingers. One, two, three...
Will Poskett 3:08
That's two and a half.
Trine Johansen 3:09
As a Norwegian, of course, I've known IKEA for quite some long time. And I think it was a really nice way of them to really take on that challenge and do it in a really humouristic kind of way, but also proving that their furniture is actually really good quality.
Will Poskett 3:27
I'm 50/50, to be honest. So on the one hand, I love the creative. I always love what I call like weird shape ideas. You know, it's not just a telly ad. They've tried to be quite creative in how they've executed it. However, the cynic in me says we're a month out from Cannes. You know... It feels like a bit of a Cannes entry award, in my opinion. There's a figure in their results where they said, like 4,000 people or about 4 or 5,000 people submitted their tags. And I did a bit of a Google, around about 48 million people a year visit IKEA's website in Portugal. So if you run the numbers, that's like 10th of a percent have actually taken part. So it feels like a bit of a Cannes case study. But you know, at the end of the day, it's easy to be a critic, and I know how hard it is to get good work out the door. So every credit for creating something weird and wonderful.
Tom Ollerton 4:05
What kind of people would have entered this in your opinion? Kind of get it. But like realistically, are we going to get on our arses and, you know, start scanning something under the couch?
Tom Carter 4:14
The idea of everyone diving around under their sort of furniture is, is very nice. And you could like, just sort of envision that. But realistically, as you say, I don't know. And talking about that sort of 40% sales uplift, there's obviously a giveaway as well, which I know drives, you know, you get your credit voucher for IKEA, which obviously always helps. The treasure hunt idea, the thought of it is quite fun. How much of that really happens, I don't know, but the advert itself I suppose is, is more sort of top of the funnel.
Tom Ollerton 4:37
Is there another way of doing this, Trine?
Trine Johansen 4:38
To me, it was kind of enlightening that they actually have these tags and that you can actually see how old the furniture is, but I haven't seen this concept been taken out in Norway. And I think that at least if they want to promote the durability of the furniture and also maybe some sustainability, at least in Norway, what people usually do is that they sell the furniture. At least in Norway they could probably get some numbers on how many times the furniture is sold on, or even last for generations in their homes or something. So that could have been a different way of showing how long a furniture actually lives on, because in Norway it's not so common just to put them on the streets anymore. Buying used furniture is probably a good way for both the private economy and also the, the sustainability. So that could have been an angle at least just off the top of my head.
Will Poskett 5:32
How much fame did they really get? Normally in these case study films for Cannes, there’s the old newspaper headlines and there's a lack of... There was a lack of newspaper headlines, wasn't there? At the back of the case study, which I thought was quite, quite telling because for me, like what they could have done, like why didn't they create like a partnership with Vinted or create their own resale platform where, you know, to show how sustainable the furniture is, you could buy, you could allow people to resell it or kind of like, you know, and then it's got an even harder sustainability angle on it, because I do know that IKEA's got big sustainability targets, like one of the things it's trying to kind of put an end to is unsustainable consumption, right? So it would have played into that really well.
Tom Carter 6:03
They were taking it from the customers’ think of... There's this, you know, weakness that, you know, the furniture falls apart... What would’ve been nice is maybe see a bit more on screen visualisation of these reviews coming through or like where people have left reviews, one star, blah blah blah, and then kind of build from that. So I think there's definitely perspective there. And then, I think yeah, maybe it did need a bit more... Or there could have been an opportunity to have more validation I guess, from others. And I quite like, you know, it said one went back down like one piece of furniture was from 1955, you know, maybe hearing from that customer or, you know, a story or something, where that's ended up, is it someone's great great great grandmother or, you know, something like that. So they had that top level stat, but maybe they could have played into that a little bit more.
Tom Ollerton 6:41
What are the other things to tick off here that you haven't seen?
Speaker 1 6:44
This is why I’m a strategist, not a creative. So please, you know, take this with a pinch of salt. But I bet you know that. What was it, Tom? It was a footstool that was 59 years old. Is that correct?
Tom Carter 6:51
Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
Will Poskett 6:53
So I bet that, you know, that footstool probably lasts longer than most Portuguese marriages. You could do, like, really funny stuff around that. Because... because I think 59 is a big number, but it doesn't really mean anything abstractly. And it's good to like, contextualise it.
Tom Ollerton 7:03
What is the obvious strategy they have here other than to maybe just placate some people moaning about IKEA on TikTok?
Tom Carter 7:09
They don't take themselves too seriously with it. So you'd like to think it would be addressing that. But I think it then goes to the wider point that I think we've all spoken about here, about kind of sustainability, about durability. Just thinking back again, back onto the points we've made where, you know, probably could've had a bit more fun from it. And I know from my experience of IKEA, some of my pieces of furniture are definitely a bit wobbly, but that's not because of the product. That's because of me. You know... Poke a bit of fun back at the customers and being... You have to be careful, I suppose, but something about it's not our furniture, it's how you've made it or, you know, something like that as well.
Tom Ollerton 7:39
And Will, who is their core audience? So like a middle market parent or people buying their first home?
Will Poskett 7:44
If it's top of funnel, you know, without getting too technical, it's the old like go after the broadest possible market. For me, it feels like they're trying to appeal to like a really broad base. You know, young families, people in their 20s buying their first house and so on and so forth. But even then, you know, when you think about it and through that lens, is there an issue? Because really what they're doing is they're talking to their current customers, trying to get them to do something. And then the indirect output is the broader base of non-customers will kind of readdress or rethink differently about IKEA. Now, is that the right thing to do? I don't know, and considering only 4,000 people took part and there was no newspaper headlines. I question the validity of what they were trying to do. So in my opinion, I mean, if I was working on this brief, I'd say, okay, you know, pretty much everyone, even fairly rich people, would probably have a few cheeky items from IKEA. So it's probably mass market where you should probably go with this brief, but I feel like the way they've tried to do that via talking, getting current customers to do something is probably not the best way to do it.
Tom Ollerton 8:37
Final question, the finding that code thing on an IKEA, I think must be, I think, generally quite unpleasant. Do you know what I mean? You're not gonna have that on your screen anymore, right? Like you have to lift something up that probably designed to be, placed at the most hard to find, right? Like if you go to, I don't know, footstool, you got to turn the thing over, you’re like... Is there a bit of, like exposing the dark underside of the, you know, the yuckiest side of that category in some ways? It's a bit too much information. I don't know. Or am I being oversensitive here?
Trine Johansen 9:05
No, no, I don't think so. I think it's quite common, actually, that the products are branded with or tied with the, either expiry dates or, or when they were born. So, so to me, that was just, very good information, actually. I didn't have that take on it at all. But, of course every person is different. I don't think I will go through my home and start looking for them, but at least, I know they are there. If I need to buy a, a piece of furniture, at one point.
Tom Ollerton 9:37
Would you sign off this campaign in its current guise? One, two, three. Oh, guys, thank you so much for your time.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Listen to our ‘Shiny New Object’ Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud.