Launch Date:

June 28, 2014

Objective & Challenges:

Every July 1st weekend, about 225,000 Montrealers move - all at once. They call it “Moving Day” and as you can imagine, it leads to all kinds of stress and chaos. Picture the scene - moving companies charging six times their usual rate, and movers in tears on the side of the road, realizing that their favourite piece of furniture can’t be squeezed up that narrow staircase.

Despite moving Montrealers being caught up in all this drama, retailer IKEA somehow needed to reach them in order to meet some very aggressive furniture sales targets later in the year. How on earth could IKEA cut through all this moving drama?

Insight & Concept:

Moving into a new home means rethinking décor, fixtures and furnishings, and the best ways to optimize new spaces. This can be difficult when you’re in a hurry to move, exhausted and you’re familiarizing yourself with new surroundings. This is how Leo Burnett drew on the human insight that sometimes in life, seeing is believing, which also holds true for people when it comes to choosing furniture. They wonder what that side table will look like in their new space of if the couch will fit in their new lounge? This insight of seeing is believing became the launching point for Moving Day 2014.

Execution:

Leo Burnett’s idea was to create easy, and immediate, tangible furniture inspiration that directly connected people to IKEA, before they’d even unpacked. Transforming functional moving boxes into boxes of inspiration – whereby our boxes became actual-size replicas of IKEA furnishings. This gave Montrealers a way to test drive IKEA products at home, while helping them move, all at the same time. IKEA products, including the MALM nightstand, STUVA storage combination, and MICKE drawer unit, were printed onto moving boxes that matched the exact size and colour of the real thing. But how could they get these boxes of inspiration into people’s hands? The answer was a freestanding street-level board in a downtown location where people could easily claim their boxes. The boxes helped people move, and then served as inspiration once in their new space, encouraging consumers to go to IKEA later and purchase that perfect piece for their new home.

Results:

IKEA ran out of the innovative, printed inspiration boxes within hours. By recognizing the inspiration needed at the end of the moving journey, and not just the functional need of moving boxes, Leo Burnett proved that IKEA understands its customers and is able to provide purpose beyond purchase, further cementing IKEA’s position as the city's favourite home furnishings helper.