In Japan, the home has always been a functional place, simply there to rest in between days. Interest in the home furnishings category ranks lowest out of any market in which IKEA is present. This is particularly true for young people in Tokyo, as most live in tiny one-bedroom or studio apartments and don’t see the potential of their small living spaces.

For the launch of the new IKEA Harajuku shop, the brief was to reach young people in Japan, a completely new audience for IKEA. Our aim was to drive brand awareness by connecting with them emotionally, whilst increasing visitation to the new shop. We wanted to inspire them to see the possibilities of their small spaces and IKEA’s affordable furnishing solutions.

As we had no paid media budget, generating headlines would be essential in reaching our target audience, who don’t trust traditional advertising.

In order to generate headlines, we needed a world first. We brought imma, a virtual influencer with over 330k followers, to the real world for the very first time, by giving her a physical home inside the IKEA Harajuku shop window. The 72 hours of imma’s everyday home life inspired a new audience with home furnishing ideas for their small apartments.

Passersby of the shop and imma’s fans on Instagram got to see a virtual human like never before, living a normal life at home. A real home. During the installation, she did everything from watering her plants to vacuuming to building IKEA furniture, in what was a living product demonstration.

The “phygital” installation and integrated campaign became increasingly relevant with the pretext of COVID-19. imma’s home life was a mirror into the lives of ourselves -- we all learned to cook, do yoga, and relax while staying home more.

IKEA’s brief was to drive brand awareness with a new, younger, urban-dwelling target market who don’t care for home furnishing. To do this, we needed to connect with them emotionally, whilst increasing visitation to the new Harajuku city shop.

We identified four key principles to achieve this:

1. Get to the heart of Harajuku culture - youthful, vibrant and innovative.

2. Get to the core of our audiences interests - technology, fashion and the latest trends.

3. Find the perfect collaborator who could speak to our new audience in their language.

4. Activate in line with our purpose - communicating our “Happy To Be Home” platform in a way that resonated with this audience.

Teasers, KVs and gifs were to be shared before the installation, driving visitation. In order to tie together the 72-hour event, a recap film was necessary to cohesively tell the story of imma’s life at home.

imma’s first home, inside IKEA Harajuku’s storefront, merged physical retail space with LED screens to blend the on and offline worlds - the LED panels adapted to changes in daylight and weather. Those who couldn’t visit the shop could follow imma’s life via a 72 hour YouTube livestream.

‘Imma’ means now in Japanese, and she updated her fans in real time. When she doodled in the window, we saw the drawing on Instagram; when she bounced around the room, we could listen along to her Spotify playlist; when she wasn’t home, she was walking her dog around Yoyogi park. He has Instagram too, and showed another angle into imma’s life.

From TikTok teasers to editorial advice, the campaign was more than the installation. imma’s exclusive product range could be shopped online or instore, where she left comments on price tags and gave her own take on a small, urban living.

imma’s first home became worldwide news: 360+ media pickups generated ¥212 million worth of exposure with no media spend, and garnered over 23 million organic impressions online. IKEA Harajuku had its highest numbers of visitors to date and, most importantly, we raised penetration among the coveted and difficult-to-reach 18-34 demographic by 12%.