I spent the better part of my Saturday wrestling with the assembly of an IKEA bunk bed for my niece and nephew. Transporting a baby humpback whale cross-country in a pickup truck and figuring out how to make my own soy sauce using household items are probably easier tasks than putting together furniture from the popular Swedish home furnishings factory. In fact, just the sight of anything blue and yellow after my day of bunk bedding has given me a mild form of PTSD. Nevertheless, I just can’t hate the loveable Swedish brand — and it turns out I’m not alone.
Two advertising students from Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam came up with a way to innovate social shopping with IKEA’s signature showrooms. The result is a genius little video that hopes to make IKEA the world’s most Liked showroom on Facebook. This simple idea puts Facebook Like buttons on the company’s website, allowing logged-in Facebook visitors to show their friends what they love from the company. The most popular items are then displayed in a special Most Liked Showroom and shoppers are given discounts for shopping socially. It’s brilliant stuff… and clearly IKEA always knows what it’s doing when it comes to inspiring fans to shower them with love.
To keep the conversation going with IKEA junkies, the company just launched The Share Space where users can share photos of their homes with other customers. The site hopes to use photo sharing to excite IKEAns about designing and decorating by swapping their ideas. IKEA items found and coveted in photos can be added to a wish list that (naturally) leads them back to IKEA’s homepage, complete with product information. For shoppers looking for more expert ideas and information, The Share Space features a brand new blog, Design by IKEA. The blog promises to dish out interior decorating solutions and help with IKEA products, which I totally could have used last weekend.
Quirks and complaints aside, IKEA is just one of those brands that nails digital engagement and social media and online branding so well, all is forgiven.
So, dear readers, who makes your most-loved brands list? And IKEA: yay or nay? (Or Ja och Nej as they say in Stockholm…) Let us have it in the comments section below!
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