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October 2007 - Strategy Magazine
Creative

Ikea disrupts sleep patterns

by Annette Bourdeau
page 13

Ikea is waking up its mattress business.

Burlington, Ont.-based Ikea Canada's latest campaign aims to establish itself as a strong player in the mattress category and duke it out with Sleep Country Canada and The Brick.

"Ikea is not known as a place for mattresses - people think low quality and European sizes," says Martin Beauvais, CD at Toronto-based Zig. "The strategy with Ikea is that it's not the 'first apartment' retailer

anymore - they have high-quality items, too."

A 30-second TV spot features people falling asleep during their daily activities, leading up to the tag: "You should be sleeping better." A guerrilla effort took that idea even further: 50 actors spent a day "falling asleep"

in busy places around Toronto, like on the subway, with a blanket reading: "I'd sleep better at night if I had an Ikea mattress." Beauvais says they're considering doing it again in a different city.

All executions draw consumers to the microsite, ikea.ca/mattress, where they are guided through the benefits of a good mattress by snone other than "voiceover guy," aka Swede Jonas Fornander, who narrates Ikea's commercials. He's decked out in Ikea-coloured sweats - the blue and yellow of the Swedish flag - and dispenses tips on how to get a good night's sleep. Two radio spots feature him telling consumers to go check him out online.

Beauvais says they wanted to leverage Fornander's popularity beyond the radio spots, and goes on to explain why they opted not to include him in the TV spot, too. "He's not an actor, he's a computer IT guy...[a commercial] would probably be a painful process."

Credits:

client: Cass Hall, marketing manager; Hilary Lloyd, advertising manager, Ikea Canada

agency: Zig

CD: Martin Beauvais

copywriter: Michael Clowater

design director: Michelle Donnelly

team leader: Lesley Rivard

project manager: Natalie Sammut

project coordinator: Hailey Anevich

strategic planner: Mark Aronson

managing director: Shelley Brown

talent: Jonas Fornander

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