How Ikea UK and Mother made everyday briefs wonderful

Withstanding major strategy changes at a global level is a fact of life in adland but it is always a tough challenge for client and agency alike. Even more so when it involves shaking up a highly successful 14-year-long partnership to adapt to a completely new set of briefs.

Ikea UK and agency partner Mother were faced with exactly this challenge in February when the brand announced that its TV campaigns would be produced to run globally. This came with the release of the first ad under the strategy titled; 'Do Try This At Home'.

The aim from the retailer’s point of view was to create a unified approach that would appeal to customers impacted by the cost-of-living crisis across borders.

This meant television ads would no longer be produced specifically for local markets such as the UK.

"We'd gone from these all singing and all dancing full on 360 campaigns to almost having a blank piece of paper," explains Ikea marketing communications manager Kemi Anthony, speaking at the Most Contagious festival. "So what do the briefs look like? They're much smaller. We were saying to Mother, 'Well, we've got a store opening. There's boarding that we need, recruitment [campaigns]. We've got some boxes that come out of a warehouse. Could we do something with that?'"

It meant a major rethink for the partnership had long produced impactful creative work on the TV screen, resulting in many classic ads.

Also speaking at Most Contagious, the agency’s strategy director Imogen Carter describes how Mother had not only been used to hefty TV sized budgets but had also developed a 38-40 week process with TV at its heart.

Carter also revealed that for many years the agency’s annual bonus was based on how well the ad post-tested with System1. Understandably, not being able to make those 360-degree campaigns was initially nerve-wracking.

Known for creating exciting works under Ikea’s “Wonderful Everyday” platform, Mother has had a range of hit TV spots over the years.

Initially hired in 2010 to help ramp up UK sales following the credit crunch, Mother has successfully delivered time after time for Ikea. From unleashing cats into stores, to showcasing children using Ikea products to entertain friends (including giant toy bears) using Ikea products, to having a poke at fancier store rivals the partnership had already produced a dynamic, award-winning run of ads.

Ikea’s executive creative director Nick Hallbery adds: “We were so focused on TV that we would never really stop to think about the opportunities that were staring us in the face."

Hallbery adds that it would have been easy to dismiss the new briefs as less exciting: “It was a really appropriate epiphany because turning that on its head is very much the philosophy of the ‘Wonderful Everyday’ platform.”

How partnership was crucial to navigating tough waters

The key to adapting to the change would be in doing something with smaller budgets and briefs that on the surface might seem more mundane (like shaking up delivery boxes or recruitment).

"We're all enthused about making big work and making anthemic films, or pieces of comms that people would love and want to watch. So it was a tricky time. Despite the 'vibelessness' of the situation we were lucky. I think most other clients would have walked away, would have divorced us but thankfully for us Ikea and Kemi Anthony (Ikea UK marketing communications director) aren’t most clients.”

The partners needed a refocus to keep them fired up. Highlighting how they worked together to navigate the situation Anthony explains that it “liberated the team to focus on other things”.

The Ikea UK team go through an annual planning process to pull out focus areas for the year ahead and this was a crucial regathering moment: “We’d always talked about different sized and different shaped campaigns and trying to be a bit more experimental, and this was the opportunity to do that,” Anthony says.

She explains that the key to the transition over the past year has been taking a bold approach to turning small briefs into big briefs.

Hallbery adds that it would have been easy to dismiss the new briefs as less exciting: “It was a really appropriate epiphany because turning that on its head is very much the philosophy of the ‘wonderful everyday’ platform.”

One of the first briefs the team received related to covering up the new Ikea store (which was under construction) on Oxford Street with fresh urnings to make it more attractive. Tapping into the iconic status of the blue Frakta bag the result was essentially a giant Ikea bag dominating the UK's busiest street. Among the indicators of its success is that it unwittingly became a selfie destination for tourists, and more importantly a  work-in-progress was transformed into a brand-relevant asset.

"We turned what was a bit of an eyesore into what was essentially a giant piece of out of home... On social media people were like 'nice AI work' but they were 100 per cent real. They were so real they blew off with the wind a few times," reveals Imogen Carter.

More recently, the team has played with making the bag more premium and created a luxury Frakta store that gives an indication of what the experience of shopping in the real store might be like.

Another brief involved driving up recruitment, which Mother helped the retailer achieve with a hit campaign carried out across Roblox. It created an interactive store within the gaming platform which showcased what it might be like to work there. The initiative garnered 178,000 job applications.

Christmas was also a moment to get creative and put out something unique in a retail landscape where big rivals like John Lewis have long dominated the space. 

Anthony says: “Rather than focusing on what we weren’t famous for, which was people coming in their droves to us at Christmas time, we looked at something that we were very famous for – our meatballs and we decided to supersize it.

The resulting gargantuan turkey sized meatball weighs 4.5kg and comes ready-to-cook in boxes. Launched for the first time last year, it was so successful that it’s back with a plant-based accompaniment.

A second idea was an Ikea delivery box which the retailer saw as an untapped space. So the answer from Mother was to make the logo smell like meatballs.“We sent these out and real people actually received them. This started a whole rumour online about whether they smelt,” explains Hallbery.

Carter adds that it has needed teamwork on both sides of the partnership for this strategic evolution to work.

"We are generally one team. I don't think of it as you [Ikea] and Mother. They're an extension of the team and working together to elevate those small groups, hustling to create briefs that didn't exist so that we could create more exciting content - it's been a really great time for us and it's allowed us to experiment and speed up this ambition we had to create more exciting and different shapes and things. We've had load fun doing it," she explains.

How Mother and Ikea UK are building on a legacy

Whilst creating smelly boxes that remind consumers of unique in-store experience is a very modern innovation, ultimately the level of creativity honours a concept that has been carried throughout Ikea’s history (including when TV was at the heart).

The story of Ikea tapping into the cultural zeitgeist and rebuilding and reshaping goes back to the ‘80s. Brindfors advertising agency helped add a touch of luxury to the practical and convenience-focused brand in New York and Sweden. The move coincided with a time of opulence following the challenges of the postwar period and a new fashionable up and coming set known as “yuppies” emerged.

Once it had reached global success, Ikea first appeared in the UK in 1987. Nine years later, St Luke’s agency created an iconic TV ad that hit the mood of many Brits keen to embrace cool Britannia, entitled “Chuck out your chintz”.

Showing Brits liberating themselves by doing away with their granny style pelmets and doilies in favour of a lighter, more modern and ultimately aspirational style, it embodied the mood of a vibrant new professional generation.

“You don’t need to be waiting for that huge multi-million pound blockbuster that’s going to be everywhere. There really is joy to be had from small, overlooked opportunities and being able to custom something out of that with a small budget," as Hallbery puts it.

Mother and Ikea UK's TV legacy

Here are some iconic television campaigns that were made by Mother and Ikea UK throughout their 14 year partnership:

•   'Cats', 2010 

Mother’s first spot for Ikea was created in 2010 and showed a set of cats released into a store. Switching up from guerrilla kitchen fix ups to showcasing its Wembley store in a way that felt positive and relatable to the public the ad was an intriguing and punchy start to the partnership.

• 'Playin’ with my friends', 2012

'Playin' with my friends' showed a girl wining and dining her friends with Ikea products. A giant bear and other animals take centre stage. Launched during X Factor on ITV1, the joyful spot focused on playful activities around the house rather than looking at campaigns room by room. It also helped showcase how Ikea products could be embraced by the whole family.

• 'Silence the critics', 2019

Ikea’s 2019 Christmas ad focused not on an emotional storyline but instead took a humorous look at the state of the nation’s homes. Talking items from around the house and lamenting the lack of attention to messiness while embracing rap to make its point. Directed by the award-winning Tom Kuntz with music by Grime artist D Double E – it won multiple awards including two DA&AD yellow pencils.

• 'Eureka Spiritsis', 2024

In its final TV spot before the shift, Ikea took a humorous dig at its kitchen rivals. The ad initially pretends to be for a pretentious kitchen Eureka Spiritsis, before the ad goes on to reveal that it is for Ikea itself. An elegantly dressed salesman boasts about the quality workmanship and functionality, with the catch of course being it’s in Ikea.