I’ve spent about 12 million hours this past week working on my senior public relations case study capstone. We were challenged to pick a recent public relations campaign and produce our own extensive cast study on the organization and campaign. I chose to explore an extremely successful social media campaign IKEA implemented about a year ago. Needing to promote a store opening in Malmo, Sweden on a low budget, IKEA ran a two-week competition where photos of showrooms were posted once a day and individuals were challenged to be the first to tag themselves on a product. The first to tag themselves on a product won the item.
Clearly I benefited from learning extensively about an effective way to use Facebook and social media to promote an organization. However, while researching the IKEA corporation, I learned that successful online, viral campaigns are not new for IKEA. In 2005, IKEA launched a fun, quirky website that challenged consumers to build their own dream kitchen. However, my favorite online campaign implemented IKEA involved Mark Malkoff, a New York comedian. When his apartment needed to be fumigated, instead of turning to a friend for a place to stay, he turned to IKEA. Mark lived in IKEA for a week, documenting his visit with multiple hilarious videos on marklivesinikea.com
Check out an example video from Mark’s stay in IKEA below. Just another great example of great online marketing!
