Episode 64 - IKEA Spain Ad Reviewed by Get Norts and NCS
IKEA’s Stuck in the 90s concept from Spain is more than just an ad… or maybe not an ad at all? This piece of entertainment will appeal to those of us who remember the original Big Brother house and it’s definitely fun to watch, but it raises questions about what advertising really is.
Does using influencers work for the brand? Is the reality show format pushing too far? What do our guests think?
See the concept presentation and hear from our guests Julie Pender (former Marketing Consultant at Edrington-Beam Suntory UK), Richard Norton (Co-founder of Tiny Giant and Founder of Get Norts), and Claire Round (Head of Brand at NCS).
And you can watch the whole series here.
Transcription
The following is an automated transcript of the file, which is not 100% accurate but will give you a good idea of what was discussed.
Amy Wright 0:07
Welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads at the show that is brought to you by Automated Creative and Contagious, our partners. And I am Amy Wright and I am standing in for Tom Ollerton today. And we have a fabulous panel of guests who are going to be talking about the new IKEA concept from Spain. And we'll have a lot of discussion I'm sure about whether it's an ad or whether it's content and where it sits. And but for now, I'd love to introduce you to our guests. So, kicking off.
Julie Pender 0:36
Hi everyone, I'm Julie Pender formerly of Edrington-Beam Suntory and working on a lot of Bourbons and drinks brands but in the midst of a transition. And I will be found in the next couple of weeks on the Bermondsey Beer Mile working for craft brewing specialists, the Little World Beverages. So, it's in the, in the midst of, from a drinks marketing point of view that I will be looking at this with no expertise whatsoever on furniture.
Richard Norton 1:03
Hello, I'm Norts. Co-Founder of Tiny Giant, and now, to be found as midfield dynamo at Get Norts. That's about it, really. You get what you get, and you don't get upset. That's my current strap line. Needs a little bit of work, I reckon.
Claire Round 1:18
And I'm Claire Round. I'm Head of Brand at NCS, which is a government-funded youth organization. And it's all about giving young people a voice through experiences and content, and really just helping them build their skills and competence for the future.
Amy Wright 1:33
Great stuff. So thank you guys introducing the film we will be talking about today is the case study film, IKEA attract in the 90s, which is for a broader concept from IKEA. And they claim very, very strongly that it's a reality TV show, not an ad pretending to be reality TV show. So, play the film and we will talk about it.
Amy Wright 2:30
So, what do we think?
Claire Round 2:32
I sort of started watching more was a piece of entertainment. I mean as I was going on. But then my marketing brain kicked in. And I'm like, I'm really interested to know a bit more about how they built the kind of campaign around it's, like what else was going on? I presume there was lots else kind of happening in terms of social amplification and kind of backstory. So, I think, quite like to know more about that bit. But yeah, definitely otherwise it that whole thing of like, when is it an advertising? And when is it kind of like content? And thought that it was a really interesting space that they were playing with.
Julie Pender 3:02
I watched every single episode. Okay, I did my homework, Amy, you gave me the brief. I watched all of the episodes, because they're only four minutes. And I was trying to understand what to do. And it's like, "Okay, great. They've got influencers." I get this, these guys must be big in Spain, and they seem to be quite relevant in terms of, you know, they were kind of characters and when you do reality TV show you want a character. But I very quickly thought to myself, this isn't an ad, because they didn't place the product. There was not a huge amount of IKEA branding. It was all about these kind of individuals interacting. The trapped in the 90s. Even in Spanish, that did sound very compelling. I was like, "Trapped in the 90s." What is this going to be? This is very cool. I don't have the 90s as an era in my head.
Richard 3:40
Is it just another nail in the coffin of advertising in terms of like what advertising can do? Because obviously, it's definitely not advertising. It's anything but.
Amy Wright 3:49
Is it scripted? Is it reality? Is it an ad show? What were they trying to achieve here?
Claire Round 3:53
That is when marketers just start kind of like marketing to themselves a bit as well, isn't it? I think it was just so in its own concept, that it sort of lost that kind of round piece for me.
Julie Pender 4:04
Maybe they were trying to be relevant with younger people. Because that was that whole kind of all of those influencers had to be course before and before the 90s in order to be relevant for that kind of lost trap in the 90s. Then I was like, "Is this about youth culture? And am I not the target consumer?" Clearly I'm not.
Amy Wright 4:20
But I think that's a good question. So, who do we think that the series was aimed at?
Richard 4:26
To me, it's just, it's reflection, the influences of people of their age. I don't think it's anybody over... Anybody, probably born pre-1995, I think you just, yeah, it's not for you. If anything it's about introducing those who might be starting on the journey of home building or flat living. That's who it's for. If one assumes that that's been what... It says, it says... It must, it must be true. It says in the PR, that's been a really successful, successful campaign in Spain. Do you think that would be transplanted now? So, it is highly likely because you know, most people in the UK wouldn't have seen that. And I do know, part of my research, that next year is the 35th anniversary of the arrival of IKEA into the UK, believe it or not. The same kind of idea could be transported to the UK, whereby it's a, it's a reality show based around what it was like, and slowly but surely you infuse it with all those IKEA wonderments and luxuries and delights that make life so much easier.
Julie Pender 5:23
I did go and do a bit of research and realize it was their 25th anniversary. And that was why they had set this up kind of celebrating it. But I still didn't get what that meant until just now when you did that recap video. And I realized that 25 years ago, it was the 1990s. I had, I've just had an "Aha!" lightbulb moment. And then I was like, that's what they're trying to show what was life like before IKEA. I don't think it did that for me at all. Instead, I was like, "Oh my god, they don't know how to use a stove?" Like I'm sorry, it's not like all stoves magically disappeared in 1990. I, I struggled to see how it made it entertaining. I think they probably leaned very heavily on those celebrities who are about cultural relevance. But I definitely would say more celebratory from IKEA, and I wouldn't have put it into an ad.
Claire Round 6:05
I think the audience thing is really interesting, because it's just trying to work out exactly who that's pitched up. Because you either got people like us, you can sort of reflect and go, "Oh, you got this sort of nostalgia element for the people who are nostalgic of that time potentially." But then you've also got this sort of whole design and kind of cultural trend thing that is going around, around a sort of nostalgia amongst the people who were too young for it. So I think there's a sort of visual aesthetic that is aimed at a younger audience. But actually, the content itself doesn't quite do that, that kind of idea of you're just starting to build your home and kind of what that looks like. And in terms of the identity you create. I assume it's kind of aimed at a sort of young 20 somethings audience, but even then that doesn't feel quite like none of that quite ties up for me either. It feels like the 90s bit is actually pitched a little bit younger than that.
Amy Wright 6:57
Do you think there should be a broader campaign with this? How does it sit, we just expecting people to rock up and find out about it? What would you want to see from a sort of broader thinking perspective, to get people into this?
Richard 7:06
I'm assuming if the metrics were off the charts, that must have been part of the thinking wasn't it? They wouldn't just let it load pieces standalone. And let's see what happens.
Julie Pender 7:15
They do have lots of kind of distinctive visual assets. And none of those really appeared in any of the four minute content until you did the recap. And then they showed some of the kind of people, the celebrities posing with products and had some kind of IKEA catalog wrapping around it in terms of visual identity.
Claire Round 7:31
They've got such a distinctive color palette look and feel like everyone's got like a blue and yellow. And it almost kind of like go through. It's almost like they've been deliberately like dialing back every kind of visual element that you're used to then having, which is a really, again, when it's like, I don't understand how this connects to your kind of like, brand personality. I don't understand how it gets your identity, and I don't really know who you're targeting.
Richard Norton 7:54
And also it had been really nice again, it's just, this isn't, in the sort of dream, the dream kit of it to have done some kind of campaign outside of the, the people in the house to actually create some advertising that's about what life was like in the 90s without IKEA.
Amy Wright 8:10
Yeah, but it's a criticism, right? So, sometimes, campaigns and you kind of, you see the brief, and it's a bit too direct from a translation. But I think with this, it feels like you're going the other way and saying, actually, I can't even work out what the brief was here. It feels like a piece of content for the sake of a piece of content.
Unknown Speaker 8:27
I think that's why someone already had that content concept and sold it really hard. And someone went, "Yeah, cool."
Richard Norton 8:33
It's a classic one, isn't it? It's a classic creative bottom drawer idea that you park away... You get it out every six months for a client and then one day, one day on about the seventh hours, maybe the 17th hours, you get it out, then you go, "Oh yeah, we'll have that." You think, "Yes, finally."
Julie Pender 8:50
Mad genius.
Amy Wright 8:51
So, what I'm going to ask for you to do now is on the count of three, I'd love you to give it a mark out of five. So, if you could just hold up your hands. When I say three, show me your digits, show me how you rate it. And so, one, two, three, let's go. Oh, okay, so we've got a two from Norts, Judy. And a three... Sorry, a three from Judy and a two from Claire there. So, oh, middle of the ranking. But did we revise our opinion if it truly was metrics off the charts? Does it matter how we get there as long as we get there?
Claire Round 9:23
They've got to combine our metric into that now so they've got to begin the two and a half.
Richard 9:27
We send it crashing through the floor.
Amy Wright 9:30
Okay, IKEA, please revise your brand statements and PR around this campaign because middle, middle of the board rankings from, from the team here. But thank you very much for everyone who has been watching. This has been Advertisers Watching Ads, and we will see you next week. Thank you.
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