Black Friday has exploded in Norway the last six years. In 2017 a population of only five million Norwegians spent more than 32 billion US dollars within 24 hours! Crazy numbers. Market research done by Opinion, shows that more than 360 000 Norwegians actually take time off from work, to hunt down Black Friday offers instead.

The event is not a one-off, but something IKEA Norway means to do on every Black Friday for the foreseeable future. By declaring that IKEA has quit Black Friday for good, it became a much stronger message. Also, the sustainability message of repairing, not selling, implies taking a (financial) risk and would increase IKEA's credibility.

We wanted to target most Norwegians, starting with the near 1 million IKEA Family members (from a population of 5 million!). But we also spent time specially targeting environmentally engaged people and organization, triggering them to spread the word. We used digital, owned and social channels to convey the message.

The call to action was simple and clear: Tighten your furniture, and it will last for longer.

We took our whole media budget and spent in on this new day instead: The big tightening day. A day celebrated in all IKEA stores across the country! We started off with a newsletter to the IKEA Family fanbase, and the message was immediately picked up by the media, and the response in social media was overwhelmingly positive. We then followed up with Facebook ads, films in Youtube and IKEA's own channels. The campaign kicked off 14 days prior to Black Friday, and ended the day after – leaving behind a debate that lasted for several weeks.

The message was perceived as close to IKEA's core business. More people connected IKEA to sustainability after this campaign.

The shopping experience at IKEA this day was received way better than when having "wild offers".

Opening rate on email newsletter was a record high 32,4%, meaning it was read by more than 300.000 people (population: 5 million).

Visitation at IKEA.no rose to an index of 109 (yearly goal: 105).

FB ads reach: 1,1 million, spending only 25 000 USD (CPR way lower than benchmark).

Instagram posts: reach 160.000 people / 200.000 views, organic only. The best achieved posts for IKEA ever.

Coverage in most national news media, also TV2 and NRK, the most important TV broadcasters. Total media effect due to PR: over 1,5 million people reached.

Most important, it sparked a debate in parliament on how to get people to repair and reuse – using IKEA as prime example!