HAILSTORM IN ISTANBUL

TitleHAILSTORM IN ISTANBUL
BrandIKEA
Product/ServiceCARPETS
Category E04. Real-time Response
Entrant TBWA\ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Idea Creation TBWA\ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Production TBWA\ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Credits
Name Company Position
İlkay Gürpınar TBWA\İstanbul CCO
Arkın Kahyaoğlu TBWA\İstanbul CD
Esma Suna Erdoğan TBWA\İstanbul Group Head
Ece Aktürk TBWA\İstanbul Art Director
Ecem Yurdagül TBWA\İstanbul Art Director
Bilgin Aydın TBWA\İstanbul Copy Writer
Erdem Güler TBWA\İstanbul Copy Writer
Burçin Birim TBWA\İstanbul Brand Director
Yekta Elvin Öncel TBWA\İstanbul Brand Manager
Ayça Demirbaş TBWA\İstanbul Brand Executive
Evrim Saraçoğlu TBWA\İstanbul Head of Production
Nevra Aydın TBWA\İstanbul Productor

Background

On the 27th of June 2017, a major hailstorm hit Istanbul and damaged many cars parked outside. In June 2018, when authorities warned citizens that a new hailstorm had been coming, people took “serious” precautions, like covering cars with carpets.

Describe the strategy

“Low prices” is one of the IKEA’s positioning strategy assets in Turkey. The brand seeks for every opportunity to feed this strategy and grab attention of price sensitive customers. For Turkish people, their cars were very precious and treated like a member of the family. With the fluctuating exchange rates resulting in price increase, they became more valuable. Therefore, storm warning triggered people to take “serious” measures and find creative ways to protect their cars including wrapping their cars with bubbled wrap, covering them with cardboards and even laying carpets on them. This was a great opportunity for the brand.

Describe the execution

When the weather data showed a new storm was about to hit the city and funny photos of carpets laid on cars became trending topic on social media, the brand decided to take advantages of the situation. The behaviour of car owners’ in Istanbul was a great opportunity for IKEA to create a disruptive guerilla product displays which fits the brand’s tone of voice. IKEA parked cars covered with carpets on them and released a instagram post which become the most popular topic during the storm. And huge price tags are placed on carpets to direct people to online shops

List the results

The post was shared thousands of times on different accounts, magazines and even in Whatsapp groups. During the storm, a remarkable organic rise, about 20000 new followers, was seen on IKEA’s social media accounts. While all posts were getting 2-3k likes on IKEA’s social media accounts, a single activation got nearly 100k likes and 4000 comments. Moreover, a quick and simple reaction to a popular topic let IKEA grab more attention than the storm!