Title	THE GLASS OF TRUTH
Brand	IKEA
Product/Service	IKEA
Category	G08. Market Disruption
Entrant	THE SMARTS Sofia, BULGARIA
Idea Creation	THE SMARTS Sofia, BULGARIA
Production	THE SMARTS Sofia, BULGARIA

Name	Company	Position
Pavlina Boneva	The Smarts	Creative Director
Georgi Zlatkov	The Smarts	Creative Director
Kaloyan Antonov	The Smarts	Copywriter
Nikolay Malinov	The Smarts	Graphic Designer
Zhana Dakovska	The Smarts	Account Director

Why is this work relevant for Media?

IKEA responded to a cultural event - the Bulgarian participation in the Venice Biennale. The reason was a striking resemblance between the glasses, used in the Bulgarian pavilion in Venice, and one of the iconic products in IKEA - the POKAL glass. The "exhibition" of IKEA's glasses became viral in social media, and even lead to the revealing of a huge scandal in the country, covered by all big media channels in the country.

Background

Bulgaria participated in Venice Biennale with a strange art installation of 80 water glasses. IKEA realized that those glasses look strikingly similar to its POKAL glass. The cost of the installation, paid by the Ministry of Culture, was 250 000 EUR. The price of a POKAL glass is 1.00 EUR. So IKEA decided to respond to that strange resemblance with a provoking poster, promoting an exhibition just like the one in Venice. But not so far away. And much cheaper.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

We just promoted an "exhibition" of our simple POKAL glasses - quite nearer compared to Venice. And much cheaper also.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

We found it quite strange that Bulgaria has paid 250 000 EUR for the production of an art installation that looks like a shelter of a simple IKEA store. The small ad wanted to provoke the attention of the customers. For a few hours it became viral, jumped out of social media channels and appeared on 5 TV stations, 13 websites and 2 newspapers. The scandal revealed some unpleasant truths. Finally, the glass itself landed in the Parliament.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

We just promoted an "exhibition" of our simple POKAL glasses with a poster in the store and shared it on social media.

List the results (30% of vote)

Once again IKEA was a responsible brand, revealing truths about Bulgarian reality. The scandal about our Venice Biennale Pavilion was provoked by one small IKEA ad and revealed signs of many wrong practices. In addition to that - the glass appeared on 5 TV channels, 13 websites and 2 newspapers. IKEA earned media for 75 000 EUR (in comparison - the whole IKEA budget for social media is 6000 EUR).

Please tell us how disruption in your market inspired the work

Bulgaria remains at the shameful 111th place in media freedom. This was made clear by the annual Freedom of the Press Index, announced by the international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders. In a clear deficit of truths, IKEA is often a brand that raises its loud voice, responding on important social topics in Bulgaria. In this case - the small humorous ad provoked a national dispute and revealed some hidden wrong practices in the cultural institutions.