WINTER IS COMING

Short List
TitleWINTER IS COMING
BrandIKEA NORWAY
Product/ServiceIKEA BRAND
Category C06. Real-time Response
Entrant SMFB Oslo, NORWAY
Idea Creation SMFB Oslo, NORWAY
Media Placement SMFB Oslo, NORWAY
PR SMFB Oslo, NORWAY
Production SMFB Oslo, NORWAY
Credits
Name Company Position
Hans Magne Ekre SMFB Copywriter
Alexander Gjersoe SMFB Art Director
Pia Ølstad SMFB Art Director
Linus Hjellström SMFB Art Director
Mari Engen SMFB Project Manager
Kristian Kristiansen SMFB Account Director
Magnus Snickars SMFB Graphic Designer
Sverrir Brynjòlfsson SMFB Editor
Hanne Danielsen SMFB Content Manager

The Campaign

To tie our brand to this news in a charming way, we made an IKEA-style manual - where the well known "assembly man" explains how to make your own version of the costume from the IKEA SKOLD rug. In the end, he even resembles Jon Snow. The three steps are simple and obvious, but the recipe proved to be quite successful.

Execution

We waited till the news had spread to Norwegian newspapers, before we shared the image on IKEA Norway's Facebook and Instagram page. It immediately became clear that we had hit a nerve, and not before long the post had spread way outside the Norwegian border.

Tier 1: There are 353.000 web pages from 115 countries that mention this campaign, among them CNBC, Esquire, Time, Glamour, Mirror UK, Fortune and Vogue. Just these seven websites have over 200 million readers every month (all of these also put the story on their social media sites). The depth of the story was also immense, with 11.000 articles written about it. It peaked not only for a day or week, but actually had great coverage for over 3 weeks. Tier 2: Sheepskin rugs, a product that usually has a peak of interest during Christmas and mid winter season, had it's highest peak ever - during the summer month of August with a minimum 25% increase in online searches globally. The increase was even bigger in markets like the UK and US.

The Situation

This work is relevant in the PR category, because it took advantage of a current event and used it to it's own benefit – creating positive publicity worth millions.

The Strategy

The strategy and planning applied is not one that's about the handling of this post in particular, but rather a choice we made some time ago together with the client. Simply put, it's about choosing the right moments for immediate action. Not to jump on every occasion where we can make a joke, but to always respond quickly when we can be relevant in the discussion and truly benefit from it in a good way. Also, we made a strategic choice to not make a tactical message to sell those particular rugs, but rather make something that made the brand shine.