Dive Brief:
- IKEA is promoting its new catalog in Canada and Germany with social media campaigns, the latter featuring a tongue-in-cheek review from renowned book critic Hellmuth Karasek.
- Hashtagged #GrabLifeByTheCatalogue, the Canadian campaign offers an in-store vending machine that rewards retweets with prizes.
- IKEA promoted the release of its 2015 catalog in the U.S. last year with the memorable “Book Book” spot, parodying ads for the newly released iPhone 6.
Dive Insight:
Committed to its catalog, Swedish furniture retailer IKEA is launching the 2016 edition in Canada and Germany with social media campaigns designed, respectively, to reward and entertain. In Canada, IKEA is rewarding shoppers who tweet the hashtag #GrabLifeByTheCatalogue with prizes and sweepstakes entries dispensed by an in-store vending machine. “We know that Canadians like to engage and connect through social media,” Stefan Sjostrand, president of IKEA Canada, said in a statement.
In keeping with IKEA’s historically cheeky style, the German campaign concentrates on creating buzz through humor. A video ad posted on YouTube and Facebook features Der Spiegel book critic Hellmuth Karasek offering his critique of the new catalog: “The book by IKEA could be criticized for featuring more pictures than characters,” he says, continuing on to quote Goethe and make other highbrow observations.