The whole world was happy for Angela Merkel that she was finally home. Sometimes all you have to do is make a friendly comment – and the public will respond friendly as well.

You have to bring it all together: A concrete event with a lot of public attention anyway, far beyond Germany. An internationally known and, in some cases, even popular politician. A loved brand. Good timing in publishing. And of course the typical friendly tone of the Swedish furniture manufacturer. All this proves: a simple motif can still generate great power in brand PR.

Our former Chancellor is stepping down after 16 years. IKEA wishes to honor her and the work she has done for our country on this ceremonial occasion. And who better to welcome Mrs. Merkel home, than IKEA - the brand that literally stands for a better life at home.

Angela Merkel has been with us for 16 years. After so many years leading the country, the time has come: she is leaving the Federal Chancellery.

So, we welcomed her home on her last day of work.

Thank you, Mrs. Merkel.

There are issues that society cannot avoid dealing with. Sometimes these issues dominate the news for several weeks or even months, sometimes only for a day. Being there as a brand and using these topics for yourself is what we call agenda hijacking. We knew that the swearing-in of the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on 08.12.2021 would be such a day. A day on which people would also look back on the outgoing Chancellor Merkel's years in power. We wanted to take the opportunity to honour her in a special way by giving her a relaxing seat in one of our STRANDMON armchairs and speaking from her heart with the headline "Home at last". A feeling that many of us know only too well - but one that Angela Merkel was rarely granted during the many years in which there was hardly any time off work for her.

We welcomed her home in daily papers, online and in the streets: 1/1 in two of the biggest daily papers and on the same day we shared it on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and in Out of Home media.

The national and international press picked it up – from The New York times to Vanity Fair and German TV channels. Even the former Swedish foreign minister shared it on twitter. The post was IKEA’s most popular instagram post of the year reaching a total of over 1 million people.

1. The post was IKEA's widest-reaching post on Instagram in 2021 (1,147,430 people reached) with a higher-than-average organic share of total reach (78%).

2. Engagement rate on Instagram was 6.04%. This is four times the benchmark of 1.5%. (Benchmark source: we are social/Hootsuite, 2020).

3. Engagement rate on Facebook was 1.09%, which is around 14x the value achieved by the average post on Facebook according to Rival IQ 2021.

4. Searches for STRANDMON on ikea.de increased by 10% in the two weeks after the campaign compared to the two weeks before the campaign.

Having traveled the world for so long and having spent many late nights in the office, we decided to welcome Angela Merkel to something she hasn't seen much of these past years - her home.