IKEA set out to hire 150 tech talents to meet the demands for a more sustainable future. By showing that even IKEA's iconic meatball needs to change we created an experience out of the ordinary: a job interview lunch with 3D printed meatballs.

Tech talent have always prioritized Silicon Valley companies, start-ups and the big tech companies in front of companies like IKEA.

This activity had a clear target group - tech talents working in tech companies. The target was to show that IKEA is a relevant employer in this field, and to recruit 150 persons mainly in Europe.

Situation

As the world faces many sustainability challenges, IKEA has taken a new direction with an increased responsibility for the well-being of both individual and planet; because everything starts and ends with the home. The development of new technology will play a crucial role in making it better than it is today. To be able to solve these issues, IKEA needs to recruit more people with technical skills.

But unfortunately, these people don’t see IKEA as an obvious workplace. They look for jobs at the startup industry or tech companies like Amazon, Google and Tesla.

Brief

Create awareness of IKEA's focus and that they are looking for 150 people for key tech roles in Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland.

Objectives

Reach out to Tech Talents and recruit 150 people

Put IKEA on the map as tech employer

For many years we have heard about 3D printing and the protein of the future. But few have had the chance to try or understand what it means. It's something that tech has been promising for years to solve but something few have been able to unlock for the many.

By creating the meatball of the future today, we would prove that IKEA strives to make sustainable choices available to everyone by using tech. But it would also create debate when people go to the roof when you change something they love and appreciate.

So, we created an open invitation to the tech industry, everyone that applied for a job and was invited to an interview got to taste the meatball of the future today.

Approach:

IKEA has thousands of on-going sustainability projects and streams. The main work was on what to focus on based on EVERYTHING that IKEA works with around their new sustainability focus.

One project that was focused on offering 50% plant-based meals in IKEAs restaurants by 2025. At the same time, many reports showed that food is among the biggest culprits when it comes to sustainability. 15% of the total artificial emissions in the world come from the meat and dairy industry. And there, IKEA's is part of the problem.

Insight:

Even the things we love the most have to change to create a better future.

Key message:

To show that IKEA takes sustainability seriously, their iconic loved meatballs is a clear example of something that will need to change for a more sustainable future. And tech will play a vital role on making it happen.

Since so few have tried 3D-printed food, we created something exclusive for the applicants - If you were called for an interview you would be offered to try the new meatballs.

The start of the campaign was one simple post on LinkedIn made by IKEAS global CEO, with a recruitment film. A press release and the film was then sent out to selected journalists, bloggers and influencers. IKEA's employees also became an important channel for reaching out.

The CEO's initiative made the rest of the employees at the company to follow and praise it. Which in its turn kept the ball rolling and led to that articles was written, discussions started as well as others outside IKEA liked, commented and made their own posts.

More than 140 articles in 27 countries have been registered.

In total, the campaign generated 5.42 billion impressions worth USD18.3 million. Estimated unique views is around 7 million unique people.

Source: Verizon/Yahoo.

On average, IKEA's job site for tech people had 15 visitors per day before the campaign (around 446 visits per month). After 3 weeks, over 23,000 visits had been registered.

Posts on IKEA's own LinkedIn have an average CTR of 0.2%, the initiative had 1.6%.

In March 2021 IKEA had 3274 applications for tech positions. Three weeks after campaign launch, the figure was up to 5,277. An increase of 61% (more than 2000 people more than before). Remember; IKEA was just looking for 150 people in these significant areas.

The screening of candidates is currently underway. The lunches with 3D-printed meatballs have started and will continue until the summer of 2022.