20 years ago, the public perception of IKEA was ‘the poster-child for disposable furniture’. But times have changed, and so has IKEA. The brand set out to stake its position as a global leader in sustainability by going fully circular by 2030. To achieve this, we gave consumers a once unthinkable message from IKEA - re-use their items instead of buying new ones.

The 2002 IKEA Lamp commercial is well known in Canada and to support awareness even further, we re-aired the original 2002 spot in Canada during the lead-up to launching our new campaign.

Prior to the launch, we re-aired the 2002 original lamp to ensure consumers understood the context. Then, we launched Lamp 2 - This time, a much different message. The spot begins where the original spot ended - a discarded lamp sadly alone in the rain on the street. The next day, with the rain gone, a little girl finds the lamp and takes it home. With a little ingenuity, the girl fixes the lamp and gives it a second life.

As the girl brings the lamp upstairs to keep her company as she goes to sleep, we cut outside to a nighttime street where, the same Swedish character, the same man who called viewers crazy in 2002 makes another appearance. This time though, he has a much different message, telling the viewer:

Many of you feel happy for this lamp. That’s not crazy, re-using things is much better.