After having read some blog posts, I came across Judd’s work. I really enjoyed it and found the commercial he attached very funny and very effective. Indeed I totally agree with him that “IKEA has one of the best marketing team around”. I definitely remember the first time I saw the huge IKEA store as if it was yesterday: I was impressed by its colors. In particular I have to say that I fell in love straightaway with that brand, even if I didn’t know what it was selling, just because it had the same colors of the soccer team I used to support (I was 10). Nowadays, besides their “supporting to my team” :), I appreciate their products for their simplicity-indeed as Judd said it is very easy to set up an IKEA table- and for their practicality and at the same time beauty. Yes, beauty. Indeed even if IKEA does not produce masterpieces, it still produces very nice products that are sold at a very cheap price.

I think IKEA marketers were really capable of building over time a super-strong brand image that translated in great customer loyalty. Indeed, I have never heard of a single person being dissatisfied by a product he bought or by the service he was given. Last year, my parents had to change the furniture of our summer-house: they directly surfed on the IKEA website. It is really user-friendly (and if I say so, you have to think it really is since my horrible relationship with technology) and you can immediately look for the size of the object needed without physically going to the shop. What’s more? Our house is located in a remote area and the closest IKEA store is 350 kilometers far away, so it would have been pretty complicated to visit it and then go back on the same day. Yet IKEA gives a solution also to these kinds of problems: you can simply order online the product you want, with the size you need and the color you prefer, you agree on the delivery date and it’s done. On the pre-agreed day someone knocks at the door and surprise, surprise it is an IKEA man with your product.

Even here in Vancouver when I first arrived I had to buy some pots and plates and the first place I wanted to go was IKEA. I can say I am on of their loyal customer 😉