Agency: Ymedia Wink iProspect
Client: IKEA / Market: Spain

IKEA has been a trailblazing supporter of sustainable consumption over the years. Its furniture is designed to be resold, repaired and reused. However, IKEA needed to actively change the notion that their products are semi-disposable and at odds with their commitment to sustainability. Dentsu collaborated with IKEA to develop multiple campaigns to highlight IKEA’s sustainability practices and support of the new circular economy with sustainable product sales.

In 2021, we partnered with IKEA in Spain to promote IKEA’s commitment to climate issues by creating something truly impactful, sustainable and different. We devised the ‘Activists Without Knowing It’ campaign, spotlighting action that linked ecological gestures in the home with environmental data to show that it is easy to live in a sustainable way. A documentary web series that achieved 16.6 million views on digital channels, 5% above the objectives set, inspired households and companies to play their role in sustainable behaviours.

‘Black Friday’ is notorious for driving excess, and often unnecessary, sales. This promotional flurry is unsustainable, and at odds with our resource- constrained world. IKEA set about ‘hacking’ the overconsumption event Black Friday to create ‘Green Friday’ instead. By focusing on IKEA products’ durability, we created a campaign around a sale featuring only used IKEA products. This used-furniture sales service set out to help consumers engage in the circular economy, increasing visibility of the company’s sustainability initiatives in the media and positioning IKEA as a socially and environmentally positive force.

We addressed the emblematic, but paper-hungry, IKEA catalogue in our digital campaign by encouraging customers to access the catalogue in its digital format. Although the catalogue can also be found in stores, it is a priority, and a key component of IKEA’s path to sustainability, to drive customers to the more environmentally friendly digital version with targeted campaigns. The campaign generated 1.8 million visits to the digital IKEA catalogue.

Overall, the Activists Without Knowing It, Green Friday and digital catalogue campaigns inspired consumers to think more about their own consumption habits, highlighted the sustainability of IKEA’s products and showed customers the steps IKEA is taking to support sustainability through digital choices. Overall, the combined campaigns received upwards of 600 million impressions.

Customers want to make sustainable choices and IKEA has created a community in which these choices are easy to make and create tangible and immediate impact.