ikea silence the critics case study

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Ikea: Silence the Critics by Mother

In Ikea’s first-ever UK Christmas ad, a family is taunted by their bar-spitting kitsch ornaments, who encourage them to defy ‘home shame.’

Tapping into contemporary culture, the ad flies the flag for Grime music that has recently made a resurgence by entering into mainstream music for the first time. And who better to have on board than an artist that Skepta hailed as “the greatest grime MC of all time” – D Double E, who voices the gimcrack ornaments.

The campaign will launch with the film across broadcast and VOD TV, cinema and digital media. The 90-, 60- and 20-second edits are fully supported with out-of-home, press, CRM and PR.

Agency: Mother

Production Company: MJZ

Director: Tom Kuntz

MJZ Producer: Emma Butterworth

MJZ Production Manager: Daniel Gay

Production Designer: Chris Oddy

Director of Photography: Chris Soos

Editing: Russell Icke at the Whitehouse

Music Supervision: Dave Bass and Arnold Hattingh at Wake the Town

Sound: 750mph

Post: Electric Theatre Collective

VFX: Electric Theatre Collective

Producer: Magda Krimitsou

Coordinator: Larisa Covaciu

Creative Director: James Sindle

2D Lead: James Belch

3D Lead: Patrick Krafft

2D Artists: Chris Fraser, Tomer Epsthein

3D Artists: Jordan Dunstall, Ryan Maddox, Mark Bailey, Remy Herisse, Edwin Leeds, Gregory Martin, Nikolai Maderthoner, Will Preston, Stefan Brown, Adrian Lan Sun Luk, Piers Limberg, Zach Pindolia, Olivia Grimmer, Romain Thirion, Richard Fry

Colourist: Luke Morrison

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The genius of IKEA ‘Silence the critics’ an advert review

Every once in awhile there’s an advert released — which is really and truly memorable. It’s the ad that every young creative wants to work on and any agency hopes to create. It’s like the one hit single that artists spend years trying to record — the one that they hope takes the airwaves (or internet) by storm. The creative agency Mother are renowned for their superb adverts, but for me, the latest Ikea ad ‘Silence the critics’ has really struck a chord.

When I started hearing some murmurs of grime artists being involved I was naturally curious and excited; The chatter that would follow had many to believe a parody or meme-esque video would grace the internet but what followed was both surprising, genius and perfectly executed.

Why it’s so good

Creatively, the concept is brilliant. The idea that having tatty everyday objects around your house can breed insecurities is very relatable, but to personify the objects through rap music in a comedic way elevates the concept to another level.

Mother said, “We tried to find things that people weren’t necessarily used to seeing come to life as that would make for the most surprising visual and music pairing.” This was delivered through an unexpected line-up of quirky ornaments that would torment the couple, from a novelty teapot and ceramic panda to a lucky cat and dinosaur toy.

The 3D animation was executed excellently by the talented folks at VFX studio Electric Theatre Collective where they 3D scanned each object, rigged and textured the items to star in the music video.

The hardest part?

The music. Getting the music right in any type of video content be it a vlog, TV program or an advert, is a challenge. It’s crucial. It can make or break a video, and even more so in this instance as it needed to be authentic and true to the culture behind the music.

It can go two both ways, the wrong alignment for an artist can spell disaster for their music credibility, and selecting the wrong artist for a brand can cause havoc. It’s a tough gig. Mother, the agency responsible for the ads creative rightly aligned rap as the right direction. This is no small genre of music and they had a vast array of artists to choose from. What they needed to get this right was to find an unfiltered artist who could perfectly communicate the comedic narrative, in a way that didn’t compromise the artists' style.

There could have been only a handful of hundreds of artists to have successfully achieved this, and only one would have come with the organic authenticity and rap credibility, and that was D Double E. Hats off to Star One on the production of this — as every part of the composition captures the spirit and energy of the grime genre as it’s known and loved for. This is a testament to music supervisors Theodore music and the team there for this fantastic job. it hasn't gone unnoticed either, industry heavyweights have rejoiced at the ad for the same reasons.

In all my years documenting grime and underground music, I never thought I’d see the day that an MC as true to his sound and stylistic flair as D Double E would front a campaign for a brand like Ikea. - Grime journalist JP Patterson

Connecting on a personal level #MarketingWithAttitude

‘Silence the critics’ resonates with me personally on multiple levels. I’ve been in the creative industry and involved in the grime music scene for many years. When I started my agency Disrupt in 2015, getting any “mainstream” brand to even consider the grime genre was impossible. At this time we found that only a few brands such as KA Drinks had the courage to seize the opportunity to do something different and push boundaries with us.

Working at the intersection of culture and the internet for the last decade, I have witnessed first-hand the power of music working together for brands and people.

What we set out to do with artists and personalities back when the agency started would later become a booming industry now referred to as influencer marketing. Our mantra was to work with an influencer rather than for them to just feature and we really believed that authentic collaborations were the key to success. We called this “Marketing with Influence” not influencer marketing. This tied into our overarching approach called “ Marketing With Attitude ” This brilliant Ikea advert is a perfect demonstration of exactly that.

Marketing with attitude is about daring to be different and connecting with people on a human level through their passions. It’s about being clear on who you are as a brand and how to communicate in a truly authentic way. We are putting this approach in action for our new business Reboxed, and if you want to stay up to date with how to really push your brand to the next level consider signing up to my newsletter

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Password reminder, ikea – silence the critics, yellow pencil / film advertising / tv commercials 61-120 seconds / 2020, yellow pencil / entertainment / audio, graphite pencil / animation / character animation, graphite pencil / art direction / art direction for film advertising, graphite pencil / film advertising / writing for film advertising, graphite pencil / entertainment / writing for entertainment, wood pencil / direction / film advertising, wood pencil / sound design & use of music / original composition.

IKEA entered the Christmas ad arena with a wonderfully ridiculous take on the state of our homes over the holidays. The film shows a crew of everyday household objects come to life to perform a scathing diss track about a place that clearly isn't ready for festivities - before each one is silenced by the ultimate comeback: some smart IKEA solutions. The track was made by legendary Grime emcee, D Double E.

What did the judges have to say?

I absolutely adore this ad…This touched on so many amazing cultural insights. Amy Snow, Creative and Co-Founder, Ogilvy Roots and WPP Roots

It’s a lighthearted twist on a diss track. Also, CG can be really unfunny, I almost always will try to go practical over CG in any case that I’m trying to be funny, but it’s really well done here. Nathaniel Lawlor, Copywriter

Work that should be celebrated is work that feels new, that breaks the mould and ignites conversation. This is exactly what Ikea's Silence the Critics does. Subverting the tired ‘pull at the heartstring’ formula usually rolled out for holiday season advertising, Silence the Critics instead uses grime music to create their own diss track targeting the house in the ad. The result is a clever, catchy, conversation-starting piece of work that lived far beyond its original purpose and instead turned into a cultural moment. Holly Fraser, Director of Content / Editor-In-Chief, WePresent

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• Kemi Anthony
• Singapore United Kingdom

Account Director

• Sophie Holt

Business Lead

• Marina Banks
• Yuki Yamakado
• Mike Kennedy
• Pauline Ashford

Creative Agency

• Mother London

Creative Director

• Danielle Outhwaite-Noel
• Thom Whitaker

Executive Creative Director

• Ana Balarin
• Hermeti Balarin

Music Supervision

• Wake The Town

Music Supervisor

• Arnold Hattingh

Post Production

• Electric Theatre Collective

Production Assistant

• Will Carmichael

Production Company

Production Director

• Giedre Miniotaite

Sound Design

• Imogen Carter

Strategy Director

• Scarlett Spence

Visual Effects

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IKEA: Silence The Critics

Argos: The Book of Dreams

John Lewis & Partners: Excitable Edgar

M&S: Go jumpers for Christmas

Walkers: All Mariah Carey wants this Christmas

Ikea ‘silence the critics’ and win nov/dec 2019 thinkboxes.

IKEA’s first foray into Christmas TV advertising has brought home the Thinkboxes Award for TV ad creativity.

Creatives and other TV luminaries voted ‘Silence the Critics’ by Mother London the best TV ad of all those that launched in November and December 2019.

Joining the Christmas TV advertising throng with a much smaller production budget than many retailers, the challenge was both to stand out and be festive in a true-to-the-IKEA-brand kind of way.

In the commercial, IKEA and grime collide when a family, fearful their home isn’t stylish enough for guests, find their internal self-criticisms voiced by the ornaments they’ve let take over their lives and the horrible things they say humorously brought to life by grime music legend D Double E.

• Creative agency: Mother
• Creative team: Mother
• Client: Kemi Anthony 
• Production company: MJZ
• Director: Tom Kuntz

Other shortlisted ads:

Argos ‘the book of dreams’.

Flicking through the Argos catalogue, a dad chances upon an entry for a kid’s drum kit. Before we know it, the kit has appeared in his kitchen, the kitchen has morphed into the stage of an arena rock venue and he begins playing along to 'Don’t You (Forget About Me)' by Simple Minds. Then his daughter appears, as does another drum kit. She sits in and they play in tandem, driving the crowd (yes, an audience has appeared too) into rapture.

• Creative agency:  The&Partnership 
• Creative team: Yan Elliott, Micky Tudor, Danny Hunt, Ludo Thomas, Arthur Harry 
• Client:  Becky Desert 
• Production company:  Stink 
• Director:  Traktor

John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners ‘Excitable Edgar’

John Lewis opted for a cute Christmas character this year: Edgar the Excitable Dragon, whose burning enthusiasm for seasonal pursuits tends to have unfortunate consequences, not least when he sets fire to the village’s Christmas decorations. But wait – maybe there’s a way he can contribute to seasonal celebrations. When he turns up to a Christmas lunch, all the guests take cover but he produces a Christmas pudding and, to general acclaim, sets fire to its brandy with a flame from his nostrils.

• Creative agency: Adam & Eve/DDB
• Creative: Simon Lloyd
• Clients: Craig Inglis, customer director, John Lewis & Partners; Martin George, customer director, Waitrose & Partners
• Production company: Blink
• Director: Dougal Wilson

Marks & Spencer ‘Go Jumpers’

M&S decided to reinvent the Christmas jumper for a new generation this year – turns out it’s the party accessory you can’t do without. Not exactly cool but not quite naff either. The backing track is "Jump Around" by World of Pain and its driving hip hop energy sets the Yuletide world dancing in winter woollies. The spot aims to embody the glorious madness of Christmas, lifting the nation’s spirits and giving customers a compelling reason to come in-store during the festive period.

• Creative agency: ODD London
• Creative team: Nick Stickland, Turhan Osman
• Client: Nathan Ansell
• Production company: Cherry Studio
• Director: Jake Nava

Walkers 'All Mariah Carey wants this Christmas'

Taking a break from shooting a new video for her evergreen festive hit, 'All I Want for Christmas Is You', Mariah Carey seemingly embodies the holiday spirit as she dispenses gifts. However, her smile slips at the catering trolley as she gets into a tug of war with one of the extras over the last bag of Walkers. She wins by hitting one of her legendary high notes, so powerful that everyone has to cover their ears – and it even shatters someone’s glasses.

• Creative agency: AMV BBDO
• Creative team: Alex Grieve
• Client: Wayne Newton
• Production company: Caviar / Supply & Demand
• Director: Joseph Kahn

Silence the Critics

8 th november 2019.

IKEA enters the Christmas ad arena with a wonderfully ridiculous take on how we see the state of our homes over the holidays. The film shows a crew of everyday household objects come to life and perform a scathing diss track, about a place that clearly isn’t ready for festivities, before each one is eventually silenced by the ultimate comeback: some smart IKEA solutions.

It was directed by Tom Kuntz and the track was made bespoke by legendary Grime emcee, D Double E.

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Selected creative: IKEA – Silence the Critics

Creative agency: Mother London Assistant Producer: Will Carmichael Business Lead: Yuki Yamakado / Marina Banks CD: Thom Whitaker / Danielle Outhwaite-Noel Creatives: Mike Kennedy / Pauline Ashford Director: Tom Kuntz ECD: Ana Balarin / Hermeti Balarin Mother: Sophie Holt Music supervision: David Bass / Arnold Hanningh Producer: Jenny Fan Production Director: Giedre Miniotaite Strategist: Imogen Carter Strategy Director: Scarlett Spence...

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IKEA enters the Christmas ad arena with a wonderfully ridiculous take on how we see the state of our homes over the holidays. The film shows a crew of everyday household objects come to life and perform a scathing diss track, about a place that clearly isn’t ready for festivities, before each one is eventually silenced by the ultimate comeback: some smart IKEA solutions. It was directed by Tom Kuntz and the track was made bespoke by legendary Grime emcee, D Double E.

MADEIT CREDITS

Mother has been a Contributor since 25th November 2015.

IKEA 'Silence the Critics'

Damon November 19th, 2019, in the afternoon

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IKEA wants to ‘Silence the Critics’ this Christmas

While many ads champion the history of Christmas or the joyful festive spirit that is so pervasive in brand messaging at this time of year, IKEA’s campaign is a refreshing moment of humour.

Izzy Ashton

IKEA enters the Christmas ad arena with a wonderfully ridiculous take on the state of our homes over the holidays. The film shows a crew of everyday household objects come to life and perform a scathing diss track about a place that clearly isn’t ready for festivities.

Disciplines

Although Christmas excitement is undeniable, there is also a slight sense of dread that looms at the thought of the approaching festive season, with party after party, conversation after conversation, not to mention the moment when someone suggests hosting something round yours.

This feeling of dread is encapsulated by IKEA’s first ever Christmas ad in the UK and Ireland, ‘Silence the Critics’ created by Mother London. The campaign encourages people to fight ‘home shame’ and make their house a place where they want to invite visitors round this Christmas.

We see a couple peering around their small, tired flat in shame when suddenly their ornaments come to life and perform an original track voiced by the English grime artist D Double E. The rap embodies the woman’s insecurities, as the flat is ridiculed by a china panda, talking bunny teapot and snail salt and pepper shakers who point out the crack in the wall, the old mirror and the floor that has seen better days. The shame is ultimately combatted with a few new pieces from IKEA, transforming the couple’s home into a place they can feel proud to host people in.

The irreverent tone goes against the sentimentally so often seen in Christmas ads, injecting humour into the festive season. It’s built around music but of a different, more unexpected genre than the nostalgic tracks often relied upon for festive campaigns. 

By turning to an artist not in the mainstream and not changing his unique style, the brand recognises the cultural importance of this kind of music. IKEA recently launched a poll on their Twitter page asking if people would want to see a full release of the track, just in time for the coveted Christmas number one spot.

Alongside the campaign, which will run across TV, cinema, OOH, digital media and CRM, IKEA will be hosting in-store events showing customers how they can make their home festive-ready, including performing some ‘Christmas Treetorials.’ The sessions are designed to spark people’s imaginations as well as offering key products to transform their homes.

While many ads champion the history of Christmas or the joyful festive spirit that is so pervasive in brand messaging at this time of year, IKEA’s campaign is a refreshing moment of humour. The brand encourages people to not take themselves too seriously, and to just have a bit of fun this Christmas.

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How IKEA Evolved Its Strategy While Keeping Its Culture Constant

If you’re leading your team through big changes, this episode is for you.

• Apple Podcasts

The Swedish furniture maker IKEA found huge success producing quality furniture at affordable prices. But in 2017, the company was at a crossroads. Its beloved founder had died, and the exponential rise of online shopping posed a new challenge.

In this episode, Harvard Business School professors Juan Alcacer and Cynthia Montgomery break down how IKEA developed, selected, and embraced new strategic initiatives, while fortifying its internal culture. They studied how IKEA made big changes for the future and wrote a business case about it.

They explain how the company reworked its franchise agreements to ensure consistency among its global stores. They also discuss how IKEA balanced global growth with localization, developing all-new supply chains.

Key episode topics include: strategy, growth strategy, disruptive innovation, emerging markets, leadership transition, competitive strategy, company culture, succession.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR Cold Call episode: IKEA Navigates the Future While Staying True to Its Culture (2021)
• Find more episodes of Cold Call
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org .

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR On Strategy , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock new ways of doing business. The Swedish furniture maker IKEA found huge success producing quality furniture at affordable prices. But in 2017, they were at a crossroads. Their beloved founder had died, and the exponential rise of online shopping posed a new challenge. Today, we bring you a conversation about how to develop, select, and embrace a new strategic initiative – with Harvard Business School professors Juan Alcacer and Cynthia Montgomery. They studied how IKEA made big changes for the future while fortifying its internal culture and its external identity. In this episode, you’ll learn how the company reworked its franchise agreements to create a more managerial and modern culture, and ensure consistency among its global stores. You’ll also learn how they balanced global growth with localization – including new supply chains. This episode originally aired on Cold Call in June 2021. Here it is.

BRIAN KENNY: For some of the world’s most celebrated founders, the entrepreneurial drive kicks off at an early age. Mark Zuckerberg developed Facebook in his Harvard dorm room at the age of 18. Michael Dell made $200,000 upgrading computers in his first year of business, he was 19. Before Jack Dorsey founded Twitter, he created a dispatch routing platform for taxis in his hometown of St. Louis, while he was in middle school. But then there’s Ingvar Kamprad who began selling matches at the age of five to neighbors in his rural Swedish homestead. By the age of seven, he was buying matches in bulk in Stockholm and selling them at a profit back home. Ingvar learned early on that you can sell things at a low price and still make a good profit. A philosophy that fueled the success of his next business venture, IKEA. Today on Cold Call , we welcome professors, Juan Alcacer, and Cynthia Montgomery to discuss their case entitled, “What IKEA Do We Want?” I’m your host, Brian Kenny, and you’re listening to Cold Call on the HBR Presents network. Juan Alcacer’s research focuses on the international strategies of firms in the telecommunications industry and Cynthia Montgomery studies the unique roles leaders play in developing and implementing strategy. They are both members of the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School. And thank you both for joining me today. It’s great to have you on the show.

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: Thanks Brian.

JUAN ALCACER: Thank you for having us.

BRIAN KENNY: You’re both here for the first time, so we’ll try and make it painless so we can get you to come back on. I think people are going to love hearing about IKEA and getting an inside view. Most of us have had that experience of being like mice in a maze. When you go into an IKEA store, you are compelled to walk through the whole place. It’s really brilliant, so many of the touches and things that they’ve done. And this case helps to shine a light, I think, on some of those decisions and how they were made. I had no idea how old the company was. So just starting with its history, it’s going to be good to hear about that. Juan, I want you to start, if you could, by telling us what would your cold call be to start this case in the classroom?

JUAN ALCACER: I like to start the case, bringing in the emotions of the students and their relationship with IKEA. So most of our students have had some experience with IKEA. So I’d just start asking how many of you have been in IKEA, and then I’d start asking why? Why did you go to IKEA? And this time telling you all the things that you just mentioned, for instance, walking through the maze, going to eat the meatballs. So they started bringing all these small, decisions that were made through the years, that made IKEA, IKEA.

BRIAN KENNY: Who doesn’t love the meatballs? Cynthia, let me ask you, you’re both in the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School, there’s a lot of strategy underlying this whole case. I’m curious as to what made you decide to look at IKEA and sort of, how does it relate to your scholarship and the things that you think about; the questions you try to answer?

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: I’m really interested in the choices firms make about who they will be and why they will matter? The core questions at the identity of a company. In 1976 Kamprad laid out very, very carefully. What IKEA would do, who it would be. He identified its product range. The customers it would serve, the company’s pricing policy, all in a document called, The Testament of a Furniture Dealer. And he described it as, “the essence of our work.” And 45 years later, it was still required reading for all of the IKEA’s employees. It’s probably the most compelling statement of corporate purpose I’ve ever seen.

BRIAN KENNY: Remarkable in a company that’s based on furniture. It was a very, sort of powerful thing. There’s an exhibit in the case that shows the whole Testament. Maybe we can dig a little bit into the history here. I alluded to the fact that it’s been around for a long time. Cynthia, just tell us a little bit about how the company came to be and how it evolved over time.

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: IKEA started actually as a mail-order business in Sweden and in the late 1940s Kamprad noticed that despite a lot of demand for furniture, agreements between the furniture manufacturers and retailers were keeping furniture prices real high. He was interested in a different set of customers. And he decided that to attract farmers and working class customers, he needed to be able to offer quality furniture at lower prices.

BRIAN KENNY: What were some of the early challenges that they faced. I’m also curious a little bit about the Swedish culture and how that sort of factors in here. Because there was definitely undertones of that factoring into the way they set this up.

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: It’s a virtue to be frugal and to be very careful about how you spend your money. And that made a huge impression, particularly given his background, growing up on a farm for Kamprad, he decided he really wanted to lower the prices of furniture and began to do so. And it turned out that there was a very, very strong response from other furniture manufacturers who basically said that they were going to boycott him. They wouldn’t allow him into their furniture fairs, him personally, as well as his company. And so in turn, what happened was that they also pressured local suppliers not to sell to a IKEA anymore, basically trying to force him out of the market. And what happened was that that actually drove Kamprad to Poland as a source of supply because local firms wouldn’t supply him anymore. And in the process, he discovered that Polish manufacturers could actually make furniture at far, far lower costs than Swedish manufacturers. And that essentially gave IKEA a cost structure that was more like a difference in kind, than a difference in degree. And that proved enormously important to building almost insurmountable competitive advantage for IKEA.

BRIAN KENNY: He was also really keen with innovations early on that things like the restaurant area and the childcare space, what were some of the insights that drove him to make those kinds of decisions?

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: One of the things that he decided quite early on is that he wanted to have the stores located out of town. And the reason is because land there was much, much cheaper. So he built these ,as you described earlier, Brian, these gigantic stores on the outskirts of town and they had lots and lots of square footage and lots and lots of merchandise, but you know, it took time to get there. It took time to shop there and what he wanted to do was make it worth it for the customers to make the trip, worth it for them to spend a lot of time in the stores. So he decided to add restaurants and the now famous meatballs, which come in several flavors, actually around the world, and to add childcare centers that would care for young children while the parents shopped. On the low cost front, he was innovative in other ways, he actually borrowed the idea of flat pack from another innovator, but he’s the one that actually brought it to life in such a big way. Then he discovered that if you let the clients go in and pick off the furniture packs themselves, they could even save more money and lower the costs in the store.

BRIAN KENNY: So they have a pretty complicated org structure, when we start to dig into some of the nuance of the case. Juan, could you describe for us, how they’re set up from an org structure standpoint?

JUAN ALCACER: You have to realize that coming from Sweden, which is one of the countries with the highest taxation for corporations in the world. So early on, they decided to find some organization structure and legal structure that would allow them to lower taxes. And that created basically an ownership based on foundations, based in the Netherlands. And they decided, early on, to separate the company into pieces. One is the franchise store, which is basically running the brand and running the management image of the brand. And then the operational part of the company, which is a franchisee. And for many years, those two things were separated. The franchisee was also in charge of manufacturing and so forth. So it was a very strange structure, that was put in place in part by the charisma and the leadership style of Ingvar Kamprad. If I can go back to your question about the Swedish culture. One of the things that, at least for me, is very striking is that when you look at multinationals, there’s a thing called the liability of being a foreigner, which means that when you go to another country, you have some disadvantages. And you try to mitigate that liability of being a foreigner, by pretending to be of that particular country. IKEA went with a totally different approach, they’re totally Swedish. Names of their products are impossible to pronounce. The fact that they have meatballs, they have their Swedish flags all over the place. They embrace the Swedish spirit as a part of the brand. You don’t see many multinationals with that. That makes IKEA what it is today.

BRIAN KENNY: I definitely think that’s part of the appeal here in the US, for sure, is people being exposed to the Swedish culture in a way they never had before. What is the culture of the company like, what’s it like to work there?

JUAN ALCACER: We went to both the Netherlands and to Sweden and we had a great time. It’s a very egalitarian culture. All the VP’s, high-level managers, none of them have an assistant. Only the CEO has an assistant. They don’t have offices, so everybody shares an open space. The whole place is decorated with IKEA furniture, everybody talks to each other by their first name. It’s very collegial, very friendly.

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: I would add to that. I think IKEA was incredibly generous to us, in the sense that they shared all kinds of confidential, internal documents and were really willing to talk in a very open and forthright way, about both their strengths and their challenges, which was incredibly refreshing. And as Juan said, that it was very egalitarian, and not surprisingly IKEA was one of the first companies to embrace democratic design. And that spirit was everywhere in the company.

BRIAN KENNY: Cynthia, what would you say are some of the keys to their success over the years?

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: I’d say that IKEA basically picked a lane and stuck with it. They had clarified, as I said at the top of the show, very, very carefully about what they wanted to do, who they wanted to be. And what they said is, look, this is what we’re going to be about. We’re going to offer an extensive range of practical, well-designed furnishings at low prices. And we’re going to serve the many, not the few. And the many are those with limited financial resources. When you have such clarity about what you want to do, then you can set out and try to maximize how you approach that. Essentially IKEA built a system, to do exactly that, extremely well and their distinctiveness made them truly an iconic firm. And it’s great when you talk with students about, what’s the purpose of your business?, What are you doing? What’s interesting is that oftentimes they can describe much more carefully what IKEA is doing, than what their own businesses doing. The last thing I would add, is that as Juan one said, they’re really synonymous with Sweden and they put that right out there. It’s almost like the way that Coca-Cola is synonymous with the US. And that has been a big part of their advantage.

BRIAN KENNY: Okay. So we’ve painted a very rosy picture for IKEA, but it’s an HBS case. So there’s tension, inevitably. So let’s dig in a little bit to where the case brings us. I’m going to mispronounce his name. I hope I don’t, but Torbjörn Lööf is that close?

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: Yeah.

BRIAN KENNY: He is the protagonist in the case. And he is stepping into a leadership role here really after an iconic leader has stepped back and that’s a challenge. Any time that happens, and a leader has to step in. And as he starts to sort of peek underneath the hood a little bit, he starts to see some of the challenges that IKEA is facing in this now seventh decade, I guess, of their existence. So Juan, maybe you can set that up for us a little bit.

JUAN ALCACER: It’s not only that he is stepping in the shadow of a leader that created the company. It’s that the company is still controlled by the family. So this is not a public firm, this is a private firm. So, he had to basically walk a very, very thin line, trying to take IKEA towards the future, but still preserving the past. And he had basically two main tasks, one is short term, that organization restructure that we were talking about, that was very complicated was created products. As I said before, the franchisee, which is basically the one that was running all the operations, was also the manufacturer. But there were other franchises. So for instance, the operations in Middle East are run by another company. So they wanted to create a system of transparency, that all the franchises are run the same way. When you have a franchisee that has basically represented 80% of your sales, and the ones that are representing 2% or 3%, there is an imbalance of power. So they tried to create a structure that is more managerial, that is more modern, that will allow to create incentives for new franchisees to come into the system. So that transaction was basically transferring production and transferring the functions that were in the franchisee back to the franchisor. There were 25,000 people that have to move from one place to another.

BRIAN KENNY: Wow.

JUAN ALCACER: They didn’t move physically, but in terms of the legal status they shift around. And the second is to bring IKEA to the world. What they observed is that there were some changes in demographics, they were targeting the low-income, what they call the thin wallets of the world, but it turned out that people that would go to IKEA are not thin wallets anymore. These people have already moved towards the middle-class and they also have this whole, to increase the number of consumers to three billion, and that meant that they have to basically grow globally, at a rate that they have never done, before they had two or three markets, like China and India. They also have the issue of eCommerce, to pick up and every retailer in the world is dealing with that. So, it’s two steps. One, getting the house in order, and second one, creating a path for the future for IKEA to become an icon for the next 75 years.

BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. And I also think at some level it’s hard to sustain that original mission that they set out with, when you’re trying to expand so rapidly and bring in a much larger audience. Cynthia, I don’t know if you have other observations about these changes they were facing.

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: Absolutely. Because one thing is that you can look at the challenges that came from expanding into new geographies. But the other thing that they found in a large study that they did, is that there were challenges in their core business as well, that the countries they’d been in for a number of years, and what I’ll call the big blue box stores, mostly in developed countries. What they found is that increasingly many of their customers in those markets wanted new conveniences. They wanted stores that were located closer to city centers because a number of people say in their late twenties, early thirties are not driving and don’t have cars. And they found that there was an increasing demand for delivery and assembly services for shopping online. These trends are worrying to a huge number of retailers, but particularly a challenge to IKEA because low price, low, low price, so low that that people can recognize the difference. That being at the heart of their strategy. And customers’ willingness to spend time getting to the store, hauling furniture about, ultimately assembling it. Those are at the very, very heart of their low-cost strategy and their very distinctive value proposition. It was a big challenge within the developed markets as well.

BRIAN KENNY: And depending on where they went in the world, a different set of challenges pops up almost everywhere. Juan, you mentioned earlier that they pushed back against localization, but is that a sustainable strategy? When you’re trying to go into entirely new markets like China and India.

JUAN ALCACER: The beauty of IKEA is that they found a segment across different cultures that was very similar. College students the United States, that needed to have furniture for a few years only, it could be young couples that are opening a new house, in some places it’s immigrants that are moving from one country to another country that need to buy furniture, but they don’t have the money to do so. So there was this very common segment across the world that they were able to then define, that allows them to have basically 80% of their line, of their range, is common across countries. And they have around 10% to 20% that varies by country. Now, when they go to China, and they go to India, they find that the changes have to be of a higher scale for three reasons. One, the tastes are different, also the materials, when you are going to India and you are going to houses that are in a high humidity environment, the type of wood that you can use is different. Now you start, not only changing the look of the product but you also have to change how you made it. And the third big challenge is when you look at what is defined as thin wallet, in these markets, is really thin. It’s not thin wallet in Sweden, it’s not thin wallet in the United States. So, you have to go to prices that are really, really low. And that means that you are already a low cost producer but you have to go even lower. That means that you have to change your supplier, so it starts changing the fundamental parts of the business model that they created through the years.

BRIAN KENNY: And it could probably, pretty easily, get away from you. So this does call for a strategy. Cynthia, can you describe for us what the three roads forward are? This was sort of underpinned their strategy going forward and how they were going to deal with some of these challenges.

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: Basically, the three roads, the first was affordability, as Juan said, this isn’t affordability in the way that they, at the level at which they’ve traditionally thought about it. This is affordability for wallets that are either very thin or actually where the willingness to pay just isn’t as high, because they’re accustomed to having goods that are at very low prices. So they wanted to attack affordability for people who could not afford IKEA today. They cared a lot about accessibility. They’ve got to reach and interact with people where they are. And the last is sustainability, and they felt really, really strongly about this. And I think much in line with what you see with a number of other countries in Europe, that they cared a lot about the sustainability of the products and wanted to make a positive impact for people, society and the planet. And they’re taking on all three of these aspirations at once.

BRIAN KENNY: You have written many cases, I’m sure that parallel this, what are some other firms that have faced similar challenges and maybe figured out a way to deal with the same sets of challenges?

JUAN ALCACER: The challenge of going overseas, we didn’t write cases about multinationals for many years. They always have this tension between coordination in headquarters and adaptability in each one of the subsidiaries. So IKEA was very good at playing that game for many, many years. In a way they were going to countries that were somehow similar to Sweden. Now that they are venturing to countries that are farther away in many dimensions, not only physically, but also in terms of economic distribution, in terms of taste. They are seeing this tension to be amplified. We have seen that in many companies, Procter and Gamble has been doing that for years and years, Unilever has been doing that for years and years. IKEA has done it for 75 years. They went overseas very early on. But now the challenge is a little bit higher. The other challenge is that Cynthia also mentioned, which is basically adapting to new technologies and new demographics. Every retailer is facing that. Any supermarket, any chain that has been selling in brick and mortar is facing those challenges. So, what is interesting about IKEA is that they are facing these all at the same time and they’re facing this during the process of transition from the leader that created the company to a new set of managers that are more professional and are not part of the family.

BRIAN KENNY: You mentioned technology. I’m just curious, the role that the internet plays in this, because now everybody can see, you know, through YouTube and other things, what the experience is like from one place to the other, and how important is consistency across all those geographies, versus a little bit of localization to make it feel a little bit more like this is the China version of IKEA versus the European version of IKEA. Cynthia, do you have thoughts on that?

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: That’s the real challenge here in the sense that, how do you take this whole model that has been developed over so many years? And it’s very, very hard to imitate, which has given them a lot of strength over the years, but when the environment changes, instead of responding in a piecemeal way to all kinds of external stimuli, it’s how do you take this whole model and evolve it in some coherent way that stays true to the iconic sense of who IKEA is? I really see it fundamentally, as an existential question for IKEA.

BRIAN KENNY: Such a great point. Look, I want to thank both of you. This has been a really interesting discussion about a brand that we all know and have experienced many times firsthand. I have one more question for each of you before we part ways. And that would be if there’s one thing you want people to take away from this case, what would it be? Juan, let’s start with you.

JUAN ALCACER: What I would like listeners to take from this, is we have this mentality of growth, growth, growth, and expanding and doing different things, and when you look at IKEA, you have to wonder, is it better that IKEA stays doing what they do well, or do they have to keep growing and entering all these markets and adapt to overseas. We have this basic assumption that growth at any cost should be the goal. I would like the listeners, when they look at the case and think about the cases, to question that very basic assumption.

BRIAN KENNY: Cynthia?

CYNTHIA MONTGOMERY: One of the things about IKEA that I think it’s really, really important to know is that they really brought something different to the world and they did it in a very compelling way. So at the heart, to do something that’s distinctive, that adds value. It comes through really strong in the IKEA story. At the same time, when the environment changes, how do you evolve, is really challenging. And so the fact that they’re being so open in how they’re confronting this, I think there’s a lot to learn there. It’s a challenge. I think it’s really important to remember what’s at the heart of this company, is that they’re really bringing something that’s very unique and they need to continue to do that.

BRIAN KENNY: Juan Alcacer, Cynthia Montgomery, thank you so much for joining me. The case is called, “What IKEA do we want?” Thanks again.

JUAN ALCACER: Thank you.

HANNAH BATES: You just heard Harvard Business School professors Juan Alcacer and Cynthia Montgomery in conversation with Brian Kenny on Cold Call .  We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about business strategy from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review. We’re a production of the Harvard Business Review. If you want more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos like this, find it all at HBR dot org. This episode was produced by Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Special thanks to Maureen Hoch, Adi Ignatius, Karen Player, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.

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IKEA says ‘Silence the Critics’ against home shame in first Christmas campaign via Mother, London

Ikea has launched its first ever christmas campaign for the uk and ireland today, encouraging people to defy ‘home shame’ and open up their homes to guests this festive season..

The campaign developed by Mother London, kicks off with an advert featuring a couple who become racked with ‘home shame’ when they’re faced with impending guests. Suddenly, a whole host of ornaments and objects come to life and taunt them about the state of their home by performing an original grime track, voiced by legendary MC D Double E. Deciding to take action, the couple spruce up their place with some simple IKEA solutions, and Silence the Critics once and for all.

The advert deliberately goes against the tide of sentimental Christmas ads, and aims to delight audiences with its humorous, irreverent take on festive hosting.

The campaign will launch with the film across broadcast and VOD TV, cinema and digital media on 8th November. The 90”, 60” and 20” edits are fully supported with OOH, press, CRM and PR. Bespoke social content features three films, showing how to tackle potential home shame with simple changes using handy tips and IKEA products.

Complementing the campaign, IKEA is hosting a series of in-store events showing customers how easy it is to get their home party-ready, from virtual reality makeovers to ‘Christmas Treetorials’ and hosting hacks.

Says Sarah Green, county marketing manager, UK and Ireland: “Our first IKEA Christmas advert focuses on the phenomenon of ‘home shame’ – encouraging people to overcome the negative voices in their head holding them back from open up their homes.

“It was born from the common feeling, that along with the seasonal joys, a lot of us feel a looming sense of dread when it comes to hosting others with many of us feel ashamed of our homes over the Christmas period.

“We believe that every home can and should be worthy of a get-together and that with a little imagination, some clever products and ideas, there’s no reason not to be proud to invite your nearest and dearest over. This campaign aims to inspire us all to get our homes party-ready and ‘Silence the Critics’, once and for all.”

‘Silence the Critics’ opens with a small flat that’s seen better days. The family who live there are going about their business when the woman’s phone pings. It’s her friend confirming they’re still on for dinner at her home tonight. She hesitates before replying, looking around at the state of the flat.

As the woman wonders whether to have her friends over, the bespoke rap track, performed by D Double E, kicks in. Inanimate objects come to life, from lucky cats and novelty teapots, bringing the woman’s insecurities about her home to life through the rap. The state of the house is ridiculed by an array of figurines, from the tired furnishings and cracked walls to the lack of space.

Just as a toy dinosaur begins to rap more devastating blows, the woman’s hand appears and chucks him into the toy chest. Watched in stunned silence by their critical belongings, the couple transform their place, getting it ready for dinner with friends. They replace an outdated mirror with a stylish IKEA one, give the old sofa a new lease of life with an IKEA cover, and hang a framed IKEA print over the crack in the wall.

Later in the evening when the party is in full swing, the dinosaur peaks his head out of the toy chest, complimenting the couple on what they’ve done with the place – their critics have been silenced.

Agency: Mother Production Company: MJZ Director: Tom Kuntz MJZ Producer: Emma Butterworth MJZ Production Manager: Daniel Gay Production Designer: Chris Oddy Director of Photography: Chris Soos Editing: Russell Icke at the Whitehouse Music Supervision: Dave Bass and Arnold Hattingh at Wake the Town Sound: 750mph Post: Electric Theatre Collective VFX: Electric Theatre Collective Producer: Magda Krimitsou Coordinator: Larisa Covaciu Creative Director: James Sindle 2D Lead: James Belch 3D Lead: Patrick Krafft 2D Artists: Chris Fraser, Tomer Epsthein 3D Artists: Jordan Dunstall, Ryan Maddox, Mark Bailey, Remy Herisse, Edwin Leeds, Gregory Martin, Nikolai Maderthoner, Will Preston, Stefan Brown, Adrian Lan Sun Luk, Piers Limberg, Zach Pindolia, Olivia Grimmer, Romain Thirion, Richard Fry Colourist: Luke Morrison

18 Comments

Just fucking awesome!

Damn thats good.

This is very good.

Love this! My only feedback would be the CTA could be a bit more direct. Why not say: BUY MORE FURNITURE NOW YOU INCOMPLETE AND INSIGNIFICANT USELESS C**NTS! Has a much nicer ring to it.

Anyone else think this could be quite jarring to people who are not well off financially? IKEA are literally shaming them about every detail of their house. Not everyone can afford to fix these things up. Especially at a time of year we know many face hardships

This is verbatim something the marketing team at IKEA Australia would say.

Hate the song, for starters, but that aside, reality is, this is how families live. So not only do 2019 parents have to contend with media telling them how to parent, feed, educate, online-monitor, praise, discipline, socialise, love, exercise and clothe their kids, now they cant even hide away from the outside world however they want without IKEA literally telling them how to live in the privacy of their own home? Great special effects, shit strategy. Not cool.

Stop being poor!

Ikea Australia would never do anything like this. It seems they have become way too conservative and this is no where near retail enough for their tick boxing ways. @Hmmm and buddy, it is world known that Ikea is the cheap alternative to furniture. I think the strategy is to show affordable solutions to the middle class. Absolutely love the music.

I bloody love this. Polarising as hell – and that’s why everyone will be talking about it. IKEA have broken the mould of the UK Christmas blockbuster ad battle.

Jealous. It’s awesome. It’s wowsers who think this is “poor shaming” that kill good ideas in creative presentations every day.

I love it too, I just wish the resolve was – love the home you’re in with all its imperfections (the reality for most IKEA shoppers) rather than – go buy a load of stuff to solve this pretend advertising problem you losers.

Well then it wouldn’t be an ad for IKEA or anyone else trying to sell shit. Are you retarded? That’s the business we’re in.

I’m offended by people being offended

What part of “that crack in the wall” or “this place is so small it’s barely a house” can be addressed with shitty flat pack furniture?

. . . if you take away the special effects/animation, you’re basically left with a good old sing the problem share the solution ad from about the 1950/60/70s.

As in, if you can’t think of an idea, sing the brief.

Love this original idea – and it was executed brilliantly

Cool but this never to rarely happens in Australia… so why post it here?

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IKEA - Silence The Critics

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Whitehouse Post believes in fostering editorial storytelling in a creative and supportive environment. Central to this philosophy is an emphasis on molding the best young talent into excellent film editors who recognize the collaborative power of visuals, music, and sound. Production and finishing partnerships with sister companies Cap Gun Collective and Carbon VFX, as well as with design-driven production company Gentleman Scholar, further cement Whitehouse Post as an invaluable creative resource for its clients.

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