To follow on from my previous blog about IKEA, I was thinking what else the business could do to create brand awareness. As the companies target audience seems to be the younger generation, those who are more so renters than buyers, it got me thinking (which is always a dangerous thought.) Could IKEA take a page out of Starbucks stealth stores campaign?
Over the last few weeks I have been helping a friend look for a new apartment/house to move into. It clearly became apparent, that you make up your mind literally the time it takes you to flick through the last photo available of the apartment.
Let’s take two successful house hunting websites, Gumtree and Daft. In the last month I personally feel that I have become an expert in finding homes to live in, through analysing the uploaded photos. I can quickly decide in one photo if the room is cold, well lit or even fit for a person to live (trust me I have been to a few places that I wouldn’t inflict on my worst enemy.)
And then it hit (like the door frame in the last place we looked) that these places can be made look like a palace, if they just moved a few things around, changed the decor, pretty much make a house a home. Like everything in business in sales it really does all come down to impression management, if that house looks like a dump in the photo you’re not bothering to book a viewing.
So as a marketing student, my creative juices began to flow. If I was accepted on to the DAS programme and we had IKEA as a client, I would advise them that they could increase their brand awareness to their target audience (those who are creating a home) by using these sites to their advantage. Stealth marketing seems to be one of the fastest growing trends of 2010 and no doubt will be a prominent tactic of 2011. What I would propose would be to IKEA to:
“Increase the brand awareness through the real life product placement.”
What I mean by this would be to contact those who are renting homes, and offer IKEA’s merchandisers to turn any type of place for rent into an IKEA show room. The company could lend their products during the time of a house search and make the house look like one of their showrooms, thus helping the home to be leased.
The objective here for IKEA would be to increase the amount of viewings done for a home and allow all those who are searching to become familiar with IKEA products. Pretty much instead of getting customers to go to IKEA you are bringing IKEA to your customers.
Now I know when there is a house for sale, there are people who do make over an empty house and make it look liveable. My idea is to take it a step further and get those who are looking for a room as well as a house i.e. Students, Young professionals and Young families.
Even if some renters do not come to see the home, the amount of active views that a house gets on sites like Gumtree or Daft is quite substantial. I would propose that IKEA pay the rent of a home for one month i.e. €/£400. In that time it would allow a significant amount of viewings for the stealth showroom and allow maximum exposure of the products. However, once the house is rented it would be up to IKEA if they would want to let the house keep the products.
The outcome of this Stealth campaign would be to reach possible consumers on two levels:
1. Those who view the home and get to personally interact with the products;
2. Secondly, turn the websites into stealth showrooms for the IKEA brand.
Here's an example I created:
