Every year, with the drop of the catalogue, IKEA launches its New Collection. The challenge this year was to generate awareness and traffic on an extremely limited budget. As a mature IKEA market, we were faced with an interesting challenge. Canadians overwhelmingly think that IKEA has a certain “type” of furniture and don’t realize that the New Collection means new designs and styles. We needed a way to make people realize the real magic of the New Collection; the possibilities that it affords people in their own homes.

The solution was a promotion designed to help people discover the possibilities for themselves. Using pop-culture sensation Robert Murraine to generate buzz, we asked Canadians: “Do you think you can decorate?”. We asked people for pictures of the rooms in their homes best decorated with IKEA products for a chance to win prizes from the New Collection.

During the week of the campaign launch, IKEA.ca recieved the most visits ever recorded in a single day. Robert Murraine’s popularity contributed to the spread of content virally as youtube and blogs contribute over 750,000 views. Overall, the campaign receives over 35 million free media impressions. This all contributes to a 58% increase in top-of-mind awareness and a 10% jump in sales at launch.

The promotion was designed to force people to consider the design and style of the rooms in their homes. In doing so, we also forced them to consider the potential that the new collection could bring to life.