IKEA - conveying Swedish humour through publicity

Whether you have been listening to the radio, watching the TV or streamed content on the internet or just looking around you, you cannot have passed by without noticing the "Njut" campaign of Ikea. 

Known as the leader of affordable and yet solid furniture, the swedish company launched a video campaign to promote the "Njut" spirit, which you can translate from Swedish to "enjoy and have fun".

Njut! in the bedroom

The ads that have been broadcasted since the 4th of September have all put forward fun and the inventiveness people can have: out of very simple Ikea furniture and accessories, you can make a whole new universe for yourself.

In this article, I am going to talk about some communication campaigns of Ikea, not just about the Njut initiative. Even though the Njut campaign is quite a pearl of inventiveness and humour, there is more to Ikea's communication than simply Njut!

Two things come out of the analysis of their communication : the use of humour and valorization of the Swedish culture. 
This last element does not only appear in the communication campaigns but also in the Ikea stores (who of you has never wondered what "Klingsbo" means)? The names of the pieces of furniture being in Swedish, it does not facilitate remembering the products (apart from the very famous Billy shelf). However, it does create a very strong brand identity, continued in the communication campaigns, whether it is by the name of the campaign or by putting forward the Swedish culture.

My number 2 proof in images:

Reindeer race in Caen (France)

For my English readers, who I thank to be so many on this blog, the principle of the video was to buzz around the 30 years old of the IKEA store of Caen, France. 

This video is very interesting to analyze semiotically speaking: the pretentious tone of the speaker and classical music clearly contrast with the fun and bizarre idea of making a reindeer race...in France. 

When it comes to fun, I have to come back to the Njut! campaign, of which video spots were relayed by the YouTube channel of IkeaFrance, which has been broadcasting a webseries about the adventures of people who literally squat IKEA stores.

Those videos, short and yet quite addictive (7 to 8 episodes for a total of 4 webseries, plus the hidden camera series) are subtle in valorizing the Ikea products and yet create a strong identification of viewers to the video. 

But as always, I oppose a strong criticism to this campaign, which is the relative absence of Ikea from social networks. It is true that in some cases, the entry of a brand onto social networks is not the best idea, but the humorous caracter of the Njut campaign could have generated a much bigger buzz than that created by the sole youtube Channel. Indeed, when you visualize the webseries videos, the number of views does not exceed 4 000 views per video, against a rate of at least 8 000 views for the video ads that were broadcasted on TV channels.
The relative lack of success of these webseries is even more frustrating when you see the huge buzz generated by the short series "Bref" in France. It's only a shame that Ikea didn't exploit the potential behind these webseries.

Please beware, I am only here talking about IKEA France : Ikea Italy for example is present on Facebook while IKEA USA has a twitter account (most of the time used for after-sales service).

And last but not least, the following video presents to you the recruitment strategy of Ikea in Australia.

Again, a real use of virality.

And for those of you who still can't get enough of Swedish humour, here is a bonus ad released for Ikea Norway.

Norwegian Ikea Ad

Translation : "på tide å flytte hjemmefra" : "time to move out"?

Njut !