As an ongoing brief within the agency, IKEA wanted to communicate their values–that they are a company making the everyday better for the many people by what they call democratic design. They wanted consumers to know that behind every product they create, the everyday life of people is taken into consideration - their viewpoint? “why should function, quality and design be a privilege for the few, if we can do something about it?”

At the same time, Balenciaga’s Spring Summer 2017 collection features a series of handbags inspired by bags that are part of popular culture. One of them, the now famous “Carry Shopper”, is remarkably similar to IKEA’s blue plastic bag, Frakta - but with a price of 2 145 dollars. The similarity was picked up by online media outlets and individuals alike.

The possibility to carry out this work was identified on Thursday, April 20, 2017. The work was produced during the morning of Friday 21st and it was sent to the Ikea markets the same day. As IKEA usually works, the material was distributed to all IKEA markets and it was their own decision to work with the material as they pleased. Some of the markets posted it on their website, others posted it on social media.

The ad went viral the week after.