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Lauren Kerensky, a Jersey Shore native, joined ADOTAS as an editorial intern for the 2006 summer. Graduating as an English/Creative Writing major from Colgate University and interning as an entertainment news writer, in addition to being an involved foodie, bring Lauren's writing topics and interests to span a wide array of genres.

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IKEA Shows Off Closet Space with Swedish Microsite

Written on
September 8th 2006
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by Lauren Kerensky  |
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Americans may take their organized, accessorized, walk-in closet spaces for granted, but in Sweden, the long-neglected closet is marked to be the next big thing in home decoration. To start spreading stylish ideas, homegrown furnishing retailer IKEA has launched a Swedish microsite that perpetuates the company’s quirky and amusing advertising tradition while showcasing its line of closet system products.

IKEA tapped the creative forces at Forsman + Bodenfors, who created a kitchen site for the retailer last year, to show consumers the possibilities of an IKEA closet. “We wanted to inspire people to care about their closets as much as any other part of their home, and demonstrate that closets are as much an expression of individual style as the fashion stored within,” Mathias Appelblad, Web Director at F+B, tells ADOTAS. The result is “a five story ‘dollhouse’ in which people can peek in on five different characters who have created closets to fit their unique needs,” he describes.

Upon arriving at the site, which launched on August 17th, a visitor is invited to “Kom In I Garderoben,” or come into the closet, and can select which closet to explore via integrated video material. Since it is IKEA after all, the characters are quite quirky in their mannerisms and design choices. The closet-owner on the fifth floor, for example, “is based on Morgan Freeman’s character in Bruce Almighty,” Appelblad says. The character, clad all in white and surrounded by his ubiquitously white belongings, struggles to find what to wear when a visitor clicks on one of the three navigating images at the bottom of the screen.

Appelblad explains that, “Since IKEA has such a wide range of styles we were almost totally free in the scripting phase to create scenarios that could highlight the different features of the closets. This gave us an opportunity to create slightly off-beat characters with a high entertainment value.”

Other characters include a female cat-owner who favors a pastel color scheme, a disco fanatic, a young bowling champion, and a family that strolls in and out of the closet while the father irons clothing in the background.

Entertainment value aside, the diverse character selection actually mirrors the spectrum of IKEA’s target group, which in Sweden, Appelblad says, “includes just about everyone.” He also describes a general skew towards women in developing the site and the importance of including a family with children in one of the closets, since both comprise important IKEA demographics.

Along with the various closet-owners, the microsite, part of an integrated TV, newspaper, magazine, and Web campaign, includes a link to a closet-planning tool and an IKEA purchasing stream. Additional interactive components are planned to be added within the next few weeks.

While its larger purpose is to make closets a decorating priority in Sweden and “demonstrate a number of unique storage solutions,” viewers can’t seem to get enough of the amusing site. “Only a few days after we released people started sending us fan e-mails and it appeared on numerous blogs and forums,” Appelblad says.

Swedish and international fans alike may enjoy the Forsman + Bodenfors creation, but Appelblad emphasizes that there is in fact a different approach to creating campaigns for a European audience than for an American one. “In most cases messages have different cultural contextual meanings in different markets, and thus will be applicable on some markets, but very seldom on all markets globally,” he explains. In the case of IKEA, home decoration may play different roles, as is seen in the contrasting importance of closet space, and national style aesthetics differ as well.

Appelblad says that a number of different countries have expressed interest in adapting the IKEA microsite, which is set to run for at least one year, perhaps revealing that this campaign may somewhat transcend cultural boundaries. The agency is also currently working on an English version to include audiences both here and abroad. Until that version is ready, Americans can wander through the IKEA closet “dollhouse” at http://www.kominigarderoben.se/, and be amused regardless of their taste in décor.



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Reader Comments.

Ikea is very popular I believe. But for some asian countries it not that quite making its’ name yet. But with this teaming up idea and having a website for it. Information is well dessiminated in that case.

Posted by kat10 | 9:49 pm on September 17, 2006.

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