Ikea Thinks Differently

Ikea had a brilliant ad last year. There’s a good chance you saw it. The “Book Book”, a spoof of the breathless, self-involved ads Apple has become known for.

(I just mean that rightly or wrongly, it’s become part of the general consensus. Put down the pitchforks, Apple people.)

It’s a fun spot regardless – check it out here. Quite apart from being a clever takedown of Apple’s perceived self-importance (and the overall obsession within the tech world for declaring minor innovation X to be the beginning of a revolution that will change everything), it’s just perfect for Ikea. As a brand it has always played upon its perceived quirkiness, it’s slightly mad Swedish sense of humour.

(Sidebar: has anyone else noticed that the vast majority of Swedes are slightly mad? In the most positive way possible, but still. Maybe it’s all that pickled herring.)

In any case, the ad is all about the new Ikea catalogue for 2015. And it’s their greatest innovation yet – with “tactile touch technology”, bookmarking, and (my personal favourite) loading pages instantly, with no “lag”.

But it’s not just a fun film. It’s an exercise in soft selling. We’re enjoying the film and each cleverly scripted joke, but every joke is about the catalogue and its features – and Ikea itself.

Ikea has too many varieties of product to sell every one of them in an ad. But we already know what Ikea provides and why it’s useful. All we need once in a while is a nudge, a reminder that Ikea is there.

And, of course, that Ikea is the fun, quirky, 21^st century company that isn’t afraid to make fun of itself or the companies around it. Which seems to be something we like.

Trust and Great Advertising

This is an article I wrote for an agency blog while I was interning with them- for obvious reasons they didn't go with it. It's a bit more of an 'internal' piece.

Trust and Great Advertising


What makes great creative work? People love to talk about this. There’s always a lot of emphasis placed on off-kilter thinking, on radical ideas and deep insights. All of that is important to be sure. But something that’s rarely talked about in earnest is how crucial confidence and trust is, between the client and the agency.


Why? Because without a strong relationship, no truly ground breaking, great ideas will be approved by the client and make it out into the world.


As an example, take a look at the Volvo Test Drive series, one of the most awarded campaigns of recent years. Volvo had so much confidence in Forsman & Bodenfors that they put their president in an ad. He was standing on top of a truck hanging from a crane in the middle of Gothenburg harbour.

Or think of the famous Levi’s ads by BBH. Levi’s were certainly nervous about the unusual approach taken by their new agency. But they took a chance, and put their faith in BBH. It paid off.


Good ideas aren’t enough if the client doesn’t trust you enough to use them. Great advertising which no one gets to see isn’t advertising. But you need to give the client reasons to trust you.

Think about it like a vase of flowers. The flowers look good, but they aren’t going to last.


So what does that mean for us? We need to lay down roots. It means we need to be more engaged with the client, with the aim of building their confidence in us- and a belief that when we give them a risky idea, there is good, sound reason behind it.


Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we need to be crazy and take wild risks. But we need to be brave enough to back great creative, even in the face of opposition.


And I say this with all the authority of a high powered intern.

The Importance of Being Local (and Being Local Everywhere)

We all know the HSBC slogan. "The World's Local Bank". It's a great line. It sums up one of the most important qualities for international brands- or at least a lot of them. Some brands can get away with being monolithic, unchanging, global. But most have to bend to local trends and mores in some way. And for many, embracing the local is how to really win over the audience, and create a rapport.

A great example I've heard of recently is Maybelline. (You might be able to guess I'm not part of their target market, but I still like it.) Maybelline New York is, as you might guess, proud of its US heritage. It is explicitly tied to New York, to New York style, to the image of New York glamour.

But (and this is key) it does not present its proudly New Yorker style through only one lense. Maybelline is global in its approach because it engages with its audience country by country. Take its YouTube page- or rather, its YouTube pages. It has multiple pages for different countries, each reflecting the Maybelline core brand, but each also reflecting the realities of local interests.

My personal favourite is the Maybelline Sweden page. It has all the trappings of a well formed social media content page: branding, lifestyle tips, news announcements. Some are in English, some in Swedish. Still better (and this is half the reason I've written this entire post) they have a local fashion stylist who stars in videos and adds a level of fun and engaged, personal service to the page. (The guy is Jonas Hallberg- according to a Swedish friend of mine he's a judge on Sweden's Next Top Model. All I know is he's hilarious and awesome.)

It's a simple trick. Make content relatable. Even if you have a global brand, little tweaks can be enough to turn something from merely interesting into something genuinely engaging.

Check it out here