IKEA ME & WE

Short List
TitleIKEA ME & WE
BrandIKEA
Product/ServiceFURNITURE
Category A08. Use of Licensed or Adapted Music
Entrant IKEA Almhult, SWEDEN
Idea Creation ACNE Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production FRID & FRID STUDIO Stockholm, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Johan Bello ACNE Executive Creative Director
Morten Kjaer IKEA Creative Hub Creative Director
Tiago Pinho ACNE Senior Creative
Joel Lindblad ACNE Copywriter
Isaac Bonnier ACNE Art Director
Lovisa Friman Bendz ACNE Account Director
Kristofer Larsson ACNE Producer
Tompa & Rondo ACNE Directors
Marie Liljenor IKEA Producer Motion Media
Fredrik Edling IKEA Creative Hub Senior Creative

Tell the jury about the creation of the original music track.

We jumped at the chance to really make it a classical drama, with inspiration from the greats. Verdi’s operatic drama Rigoletto features a piece named “La donna è mobile”, a canzone so catchy it had to be practiced in hideout. Thanks to it’s well-known melody, and the Opera’s dramatic qualities, we remade it to fit our story – by simply letting our actors sing their struggle to balance “Me” and “We”. The score of the film is central to the idea and with that the choice of singers. Instead of going with the somewhat humorous approach of choosing everyday people to perform the piece, we choose to take it as close to a proper opera as possible. We worked with opera singers, old and young, with different vocal classifications to really put together a drama worth its name.

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

The film starts off with a man putting on a music track on a vintage music-player and laying down in his favourite chair. The track that starts to play is a remake of Verdi's "La donna è mobile”. Suddenly, the man starts to sing along. He sings about his calming "me-time", but is suddenly disturbed by his wife barging in, yelling at him to get dressed for a party – she's singing about "we-time". From there on out the film takes off. We see relatable everyday situations where a variety of people try to balance me- and we-time, which is the basic plot of the whole film. After the song's climax, we land in a line – "Me & we. There's room for both."

Cultural/Context information for the jury

In this film launch of the 2019 IKEA catalogue, the brand turns to music to demonstrate a drama of everyday life – the battle between me-time and we-time. Doing so, the brand borrows a few tricks from the drama that stands above the rest, the tried and tested opera. By basing their film on Giuseppe Verdi’s famous canzone “La donna è mobile” from his opera Rigoletto and re-writing it to fit a rather more modern life scenario, the film adds both humor and charm to an otherwise tricky – and often dull – subject. IKEA, as many know, are the ambassadors of everyday life and with his film they prove that they will not only help you make things look good – but will gladly help you with solutions fit for everyday drama as well.