Getting current and potential customers to engage with your brand is always a daunting task. While appropriately targeting your target market with relevant, interesting and frequent content is essential to increasing brand awareness and engagement, Ikea’s latest campaign illuminates the qualitative side of content generation. Enter the Bookbook video, released in September 2014 by Ikea to promote their latest catalog.
With over 12 million views for a video which originated from Ikea’s Singapore Youtube channel, somewhere North Americans were never likely to look for content, it’s safe to say that Ikea’s video has gone viral. Let’s break down the 3 main elements that make this video so appealing:
- It’s Topical: with Apple’s new iPhone and Apple Watch releases looming, Ikea knew what sort of promotional videos Apple would be rolling out. White background, clean shaven speaker, and claims of revolutionizing our lives with the latest release. While many brands are trying to copy Apple, they end up coming off as Me-Too campaigns. Instead, Ikea pokes fun at Apple with it’s Bookbook, playing on consumers’ feelings that Apple marketing has become fairly ubiquitous and expected.
- It’s Self-Reflective: Where Ikea really capitalizes on this opportunity is by Incorporating a few jabs at their own brand, to show they understands how Ikea is perceived and that they know they’re a little weird, Swedish, and that’s just their thing. The ability to show that the brand is keenly aware of how it’s viewed by the public makes the video far more endearing.
- It’s Not Mean: Many campaigns that poke fun at another brand tend to fall into the trap of coming off a bit snobby, better than, or otherwise just disrespectful. By balancing the above 2 points effectively, Ikea keeps the tone fun and innocent. Ikea has a laugh, customers have a laugh, and crucially Apple does too. This means Ikea reaps the rewards for it’s campaign through brand awareness and engagement, and avoids any backlash for doing so at Apple’s expense.
By incorporating these elements into their own campaigns, when the opportunity presents itself rather than just forcing the joke, brands can similarly create engaging content which goes viral, reaching their own customer as well as a much more general audience of potential customers. Well done Ikea.