Those who enjoy efficiency in furniture design may find they have a love/hate relationship with the (in)famous IKEA, which prides itself on cheap, flat-pack, easy-to-ship but still-stylish home products … with some assembly required. These humorously artistic advertisements show off a lighter side of this international furnishings company. The message: you don’t have to hate IKEA furniture assembly! They have services ready and willing to help.

Grabarz und Partner created this campaign with their target audience clearly in mind, as well as their critics. The best laid plans, as anyone who has built something complex from IKEA can attest, do not always mean you will end up building what you expected.

Taking things a step further, they even introduced some adult language into one of them – but really, it fits: when you screw something up (or the wrong way down, perhaps, in this case) and are sitting on the floor sucking your well-hammered thumb, what do you actually say?

So while IKEA has mixed associations for some of us, the message here is clear: they too know that their products are not perfect, but are also a company in search of profit – happy to refer you to additional paid services to asset in the construction of your latest unspellable asset, marketed in unusual ways and found in the endless maze of isles at a uniquely strange megastore.

About Grabarz & Partner

“Without emotions, a brand is just some boring company. Emotions are what define brands. What makes them distinguishable. Friendly. Special. covetous. Such brands are not created in meetings or at conference tables, but in people’s minds and hearts. That’s why we do everything we can to charge brands with the right emotions as much as possible. For Porsche or Volkswagen as well as for BURGER KING or IKEA. Because brands have to inspire today. Astonish. To surprise. Make us cry or laugh. Give us goosebumps or an unforgettable moment. We work on that every day. We know that only those who move people move brands and market shares. Everything else is communication with yourself.”