In 2022 millions of Ukrainians have been forced to flee the war, leaving everything

behind and bringing with them what was left of their life packed in a suitcase. Literally.

With the project "A place to call home" IKEA had already recovered, redeveloped and furnished unused spaces to turn them into welcoming places for Ukrainian refugees. But it wasn’t enough: they needed to feel again the warmth of a home. Our goal was give it back to them, rising awareness and making people act.

We need to face the reality to take action. So, we put people who wanted to give a

warmth to their home in front of the reality of those who had to leave their own, giving shape to what’s left of an Ukranian refugee’s home: a suitcase.

IKEA is where everyone looks for the perfect solution to add warmth to their home. But what would happen if they found the reality of someone who had to leave their own? To raise awareness, we put IKEA customers in front of what's left of a Ukrainian refugee's home: a simple suitcase. A powerful image for people that were walking through wellfurnished stores, that made them stop and think. The campaign took place in 21 IKEA stores across Italy, in order to engage as many customers as possible.

From April 22 to May 8 across Italy, we metaphorically packed the entire contents of an IKEA setting room into a suitcase, as all refugees were forced to do. We exhibited the setting room completely empty without furniture or accessories and with only a suitcase inside. Walking though the stores, customers were faced with this strong image that invited them to think and act, donating essential goods to Ukrainian refugees. For each donation made, IKEA added another one. People started to take action, and together we began to give back a sense of home to those who left it behind.

“The Suitcase” caught the attention of all customers who visited IKEA stores across Italy, achieving a national scale impact. We brought our campaign to 21 Italian IKEA stores and triggered a great conversation by recording 58M total reach. But the most important result is that people finally faced the reality of all the refugees who fled the war and started to take action: just in the first week we recorded 2.3K customer donations to all the countries hosting Ukrainian refugees, starting to give back a sense of home to those who had to leave it.