The IKEA team has been working on one of those campaigns that you just feel utterly proud to have come up with and then to have been a part of as an agency.
We worked with IKEA and their partner Shelter, on a campaign to highlight the fact that both are calling on the government to commit to building 90,000 social homes a year by 2030 to help address the housing emergency – which is only set to get worse in light of the cost of living crisis.
We’ve worked alongside the communications teams from both organisations to lay all the groundwork and do all the things that one should as part of an integrated comms campaign.
But then we wanted to take the activity up a notch – and make our calls that little bit louder.
Which is how we came up with the idea of taking over the store’s normally pristine room sets and using them as a means of highlighting the often desperate conditions in temporary accommodation that many find themselves. Across stores in Hammersmith, Bristol, Warrington and Birmingham we recreated the real living conditions of four case studies who have used Shelter’s services when they were experiencing homelessness.
Each was designed to be incredibly impactful and capture customers’ attention by way of contrast to IKEA’s usually slick and polished interiors, and raise awareness of the completely unsuitable conditions that too many people find themselves in.
Inevitably, on announcing the activity, coverage has gone wild, and we’ve landed over 200 pieces of print/online coverage (and counting, it just keeps coming!) including Metro, Daily Mirror, Evening Standard, Independent to name just a tiny few highlights. There’s also a load more in the pipeline as we continue to push the campaign.
It’s been one of those campaigns where the team has been in it heart and soul and we can genuinely say that we’ve pushed an important and often overlooked issue up the agenda. Watch this space for what’s next …
