IKEA's brilliant Facebook campaign

The Swedish town of Malmo is a wonderful place.

Some feel it is wonderful because it is the spiritual home of a band that was once cool, the Cardigans.

But now all committed social networkers will think Malmo is wonderful because of its IKEA. You see, the Swedish purveyor of fast-food furniture decided to open a new store in Malmo and didn't really have a lot of money to let people know about it.

So it engaged a rather outre advertising agency called Forsman and Bodenfors to create a rather special launch campaign.

The agency created a Facebook profile for the store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Over a two-week period, it uploaded images from of IKEA showrooms to his Facebook photo album.

Then it put out word that the first person to tag their name to a product in the pictures, won it.

Facebook being what it is, word got out and needy, enthusiastic Swedes begged for more pictures so that they could tag themselves to a new sofa, a new bed, or a new vase into which they could stick their plastic flowers or their dead grandparents' ashes.

Before Facebook could take credit for its own wonderful ingenuity in creating the world's most needed Web site, thousands of Swedes were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms all around the personal galaxy known as their profile pages.

Please look at the video I have embedded, as this idea is, as the best always are, simple and inspired. Which, some would say, also perfectly describes the clever, affordable, if sometimes maddening-to-put-together little things made by IKEA.

[gerrrg]

Good job...everyone loves a chance to get something for free.<br /><br />The music is what I would imagine ABBA would sound like, if the band were bjorn in this current millennium.

[killer_bunnie]

This is a great way of demonstrating what existing tools can do. Don't spend a fortune on apps, use what is there and give more away. <br /><br />This is also a reason for Companies to be more open on social platforms, if the campaign had been ran through a facebook group not attached to an ikea employee the take up might have been different?<br /><br />Be good to know how they let users know about the competition in the first place?

[jbrons]

Sorry killer_bunnie, but companies are in fact required to spend a fortune on apps now. See my comment below. Try a promotion like this and your page could be deleted for violating Facebook's guidelines.<br /><br />The positive attention directed at IKEA should instead be negative attention directed at Facebook for discouraging and disallowing such contests. Nothing against IKEA, just Facebook (and a little bit toward CNet for its tacit support of flagrantly prohibited contests).

[brianbreslin]

Actually they should have made a fan page for this, and done the contest through that. Creating a personal profile for the guy limits their promotional abilities. Clever idea, just needed some minor refinement.

[Hollandjb680]

This is a brilliant example of how companies who really understand their buyer personas and their buying process can take advantage of social media. Forgetting the mechanics of "how" this was implemented, it has a more visible strategic value for marketing.

[jbrons]

Unfortunately, this is a blatant violation of Facebook's new promotional guidelines, available at this link:<br />http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php<br /><br />In particular, this section:<br /><br />"3. All promotions must be hosted on a third-party site and through an opt-in application developed specifically for the promotion. Promotions using general Facebook features such as photo uploads, wall posts or discussion boards are not acceptable."<br /><br />Indeed, this is a brilliant use of Facebook's built in viral capabilities ("kidnapping the news feed," as they cleverly put it), that many smart companies have managed to use to benefit their business. It's a shame that Facebook is spitting in those companies' faces now by requiring official representation, third party apps, strict age limits, and so on, making what used to be fun, spontaneous, and clever now cumbersome, slow, and expensive. All in the name of monetizing the success of people who have figured out how to use Facebook well!

[Mike_Albanese]

Clever. But also, completely non-compliant from a promotions standpoint. Facebook's native apps have no way of distinguishing who really tagged themselves first. When a user commits the time to participate in a promotion, it should be assured that the mechanisms are in place to govern the promotion.<br /><br />Hosting something like this on Facebook makes them liable, which is why they make everyone use a 3rd party to manage and fulfill promotions. Unfortunately, this is a case of a company doing something for the sake of a stunt, vs bringing real user value.

[jasonllewin]

How could they not have money to promote the store, but then give away thousands of $$ of furniture? I love the tatic though - great idea and lots of coverage after.

[ddiament]

This action has been more succesful on receiving coverage from marketing media than the campaign by itself. <br /><br />Marketers are dying for new ideas to use facebook without paying money or investing in apps. <br /><br />Give away free furniture in time square. you will get more press.

[craigmcgill]

Exactly. This smacks more of marketeers going 'ohh aren't we great' than an actual success. Look at the stats and figures involved - less than 10,000 people - it's a poor result in my opinion, as I said over at http://bit.ly/5lNp3j

[craigmcgill]

I dont see the genius here at all. When you break down the figures on it, there's actually a very poor ROI. See my argument here - http://bit.ly/5lNp3j

[janvrsinsky]

Wait a minute... they call this cheap? Let's say that everybody who claimed their piece of furniture has 100 friends on facebook (on average). That means it cost them $100 (an average manufacturing price of a piece of furniture) to target 100 people? Let's say that 20% actually read the message...? that means it cost them $5 to target one person? <br /><br />Anyway, it's a great idea. Just put it into perspective. It more seems like a commercial to Facebook than anything else. May be the real value was that the campaign was talked about, not the campaign itself.

I would be interested in knowing how much actual revenue this generated. Often this sort of thing can prove to be more expensive than most people realize.

[briancarterguy]

I agree with the ROI skeptics. There's not a number in this post.<br /><br />How much money did this campaign cost?<br />How much money did it make them?<br /><br />Social media is a great haven right now for traditional advertisers who are still managing not to be held accountable for ROI.

[adamulve]

here is a new youtube link:<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TYy_3786bo

[brucepelican]

add witty comment here