When Barack Obama visited Oslo, Norway in September to speak at a conference, he spent his whole time on stage sitting in an IKEA LANDSKRONA chair. Norway is a small country. and having global celebrity ex-presidents visit us is of course a huge deal. The brief was to find a way to make this chair a relevant story from the Obama visit, in a way that built the IKEA brand and also brought people to the warehouse.

IKEA aims to give the many people equal access to great design, no matter how big their wallet is. Therefore, it just didn't seem right to make this "Obama chair" into a museum object, or sell it at an auction to the highest bidder (even for a good cause). Not only would it glorify Obama, it would also make IKEA seem very self important.

The creative idea was as simple as it was on-brand: we took this chair and placed it exactly where we would place any other slightly used, returned or exhibition piece: in the"as-is"-isle (named "Billigkroken" in Norwegian, "The cheap corner") at a reduced price.

For cultural context, Norway has always suffered from "little brother" syndrome. Meaning that we're desperate to be noticed, and absolutely love it when big celebrities pay attention to our little nation. You can get in the newspaper for anything related to it, for example there was a story in national media the last time Justin Bieber came to visit, covering the person who rented out snow mobiles to him and his crew. When Bill Clinton visited, there was a big story on the bakery who sold him a coffee. This magical mix of very local and world famous was what we aimed to tap into with this idea.

The target group was definitely Norwegians across demographics, but also very local – aiming to get people to turn up and buy the chair. Therefore we aimed for both local and national press coverage.

As soon as Obama was off the stage in the afternoon, we returned the chair to the local IKEA warehouse at Slependen (Oslo) to put it up for sale in the "as-is"-isle. Every piece of furniture sold there has a characteristic price sticker, showing the price reduction and letting you know why it's sold cheaper. We made one too, that reads: “This chair has been used - by Barack Obama when he visited Oslo the 26th of September. Naturally we can’t sell it at full price anymore. LANDSKRONA chair has a warm and welcoming look,with a clean and classy expression. Kind of like thepresident himself. All in all, a great buy.”

We took a picture of it that we shared on IKEA Norways Facebook and Instagram, with the copy: "You never know what treasures you'll find in the as-is isle!"

The stunt got wide coverage in both national and local Norwegian press, both before and after the chair was sold (which happened within an hour or so). The buyer was a local teacher, who placed the chair in her elementary school’s library aiming to inspire the pupils to dream big in their lives. The biggest news broadcaster in Norway, NRK, had an article about this on the front page of their site. AdAge listed the stunt as one of top creative work of that week, and the stunt got covered by several international news outlets. For IKEA Norway this was their most engaging posts of the year so far, one that had literally nothing in budget.