Brilliant IKEA

IKEA is known in the advertising world for being innovative and at times a little risque.  This makes them both memorable and rather entertaining.  They have somewhat recently done a promotion that I find to be brilliant!

For a new store opening in Toronto, IKEA decided to set up a living room full of their furniture at a local train station.  The furniture then had notes attached to each piece that read: 

"Steal me. What better way to make a friend than to say, 'Excuse me, want to help me steal this sofa?' The two of  you will then be able to look back at this day and say, 'Hey, remember that time we stole that sofa?' And you'll laugh.  Of course, you and your new friend could always just go to IKEA and buy a Klippan sofa, seeing as they are only $250."

At first there were many skeptical people, but eventually someone took the bait, and after one person moved the rest of the furniture was taken very quickly.  And the whole thing was filmed and placed on the web.  IKEA repeated this event in  another city as well.  Before long the local news picked up on the story and gave IKEA a lot of free publicity.

Like the furniture gig, IKEA has done a lot of interactive advertisements that involve setting up their furniture throughout a city.  Here is a link to some of their most clever advertising that you should really check out:

http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2010/01/12/clever-and-creative-ikea-advertising/

Park bench:

Sample of IKEA drawers on apartment building:

Train in Japan decorated with IKEA furniture for seating:

Outdoor Advertising

So lately I have been truly fascinated with all the unique outdoor advertisements and transformation of common objects to have a double meaning for a brand.  As a result I have compiled some of my favorite outdoor ads I have discovered to share!

This first set of ads is one of my favorites!  It is so creative and it would definitely catch my attention.  It is for jobsintown.de, which is a German job listing site.  There are a lot more of their ads, but the one's below are the one's I like best. The words on the machines read "Life's too short for the wrong job!".

This next ad is for Home Plus Supermarket.  They put stickers resembling store shelves on pillars in the subway.  From looking at the picture below I would have no idea it wasn't a grocery store.

The ad below is an anti-smoking ad, saying "What we see when you smoke".  I think that a lot of the anti-smoking ads do a great job at bringing across that smoking is gross and this is just another of their ads that are attention grabbing and meaningful. 

This ad is for Frontline flea medicine, and as you can see from above it appears that the people walking over the large floor picture are actually fleas.  I love ads like this where there is an extra element to understanding it, such as having the right view!  This also reminds me of adds the Economist posted on the top of buses that drove through town so people working/living on upper floors could see.

This next ad is for Sharpie.  It is an interactive board where people can sign a cast using the "Sharpie".  Ads that get people involved are almost always a great idea!

The last ad that I will show in this post is from a fitness center in Amsterdam (Fitness First).  It shows your weight when sitting on the bench, which for some people might be embarrassing (and cause them to want to take a trip to the gym)!

That's it for now.. I still have a lot more I like, but I'll save those for another time!