This week I will analyze an IMC campaign called “Ikea: A Brand; A Lifestyle.” This campaign discusses IKEA’s need to expand itself in the United States. It mentions that there are 34 IKEA stores across the United States, and most of them are near major cities. This campaign seeks to increase IKEA’s customer base by targeting both men and women who are 25 to 45 years old and who live at least 100 miles away from an IKEA outlet. Its goals are to “obtain 10,000 ‘first-time’ visitors to IKEA showroom[s],” increase online sales by 15 percent,” and “achieve a 10 percent return-rate with newly acquired customers.” Their budget is $2 million (Benner, 2011, p. 2, 17, 29-30).
IKEA’s campaign uses many different forms of marketing, advertising/promotion, public relations, and social media to attract customer interest and increase sales. First, the campaign attempts to market itself by creating radio and podcast advertisements in populated areas, putting print advertisements in local newspapers and magazines, and by utilizing internet marketing, mobile marketing, email marketing, TV commercials, and online videos to reach busy individuals as quickly as possible. These tactics are being used to help IKEA achieve their objective of reaching 100,000 “potential customer-households..within one year” (Benner, 2011, p. 22-24).
Next, IKEA’s campaign uses public relations to push a direct marketing event called “IKEACon.” This event will take place in three rural towns across the United States to educate potential customers on IKEA’s brand and products. Public relations will mainly be used to attract 700 people to attend each of these events in person and 500 people to attend each of them online. However, public relations will also be used to help IKEA “generate 25 positive media reports in major national publications,” and to “receive 3,000 positive mentions…on social networking sites” (Benner, 2011, p. 25-27).
Third, IKEA’s campaign uses social media and promotional tactics to supplement all other areas of marketing, advertising, and public relations. For example, the products being sold at IKEACon are offering “steep discounts [and] promotional offers,” which will take place through various games, gift cards, and door prizes. The campaign will also use Facebook, Twitter, and mobile apps to “create a personal connection with existing customers and to build trust and rapport with potential customers” by offering discount codes and online competitions (Benner, 2011, p. 23-25, 27-28).
Here’s my SWOT analysis of IKEA’s campaign (Barney, 1995, p. 49-50; Beagrie, 2004, p. 21). Overall, I thought this campaign had many great strengths. One of this campaign’s greatest strengths was its detailed goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics because they each had specific numbers and dates attached to them. An example of this occurs when the campaign says it has the goal to “increase sales by 15 percent within one year of implementation” (Benner, 2011, p. 1-30). I also liked how much this campaign diversified its media mix in order to reach its target audience (Blakeman, 2015, p. 11-15).
However, IKEA’s plan has some weaknesses to overcome. For example, it can’t seem to decide what audience it wants to focus on. A target audience that contains both men and women between the ages of 25 and 45 is way too big (Benner, 2011, p. 13). People in this age range could come from many different lifestyles. For example, people who are 45 might already own a home and be focused on sending their first child to college, while a 25-year-old is probably just graduating college and looking for their first full-time job (Benner, 2011, p. 13, 22). Additionally, a $2 million budget is pretty small for the amount of media sources that this campaign wants to utilize (Benner, 2011, p. 29).
Next, IKEA could create more opportunities for this campaign by creating more social media accounts. Facebook and Twitter are great social media networks, but if IKEA branched out beyond that, they might have a better chance of reaching more people (Benner, 2011, p. 18, 30). There is also a huge opportunity for IKEA to travel to more than just 3 rural towns for their IKEACon event (Benner, 2011, p. 17, 25). Maybe they could stop at 20 to 30 different locations to engage more people.
Finally, IKEA’s campaign should find a better way to eliminate the threat of IKEA’s competitors. Many of the social media and marketing strategies that this campaign discusses could easily be copied by a rival company. This means that IKEA will have to find a more unique way to stand out if they want to beat their competition (Benner, 2011, p. 12-30; Barney, 1995, p. 50-53). There is also the threat that people who live further away might purchase furniture from IKEA’s competition if that competition is closer to where they live (Benner, 2011, p. 2, 13, 22). For this reason, I think IKEA would be better served by focusing their efforts on the customers who can actually access their stores.
Based on my SWOT analysis, I think IKEA should strategically pick a more narrow audience for their future campaigns and decrease their media mix to fit more within their budget. IKEA should also utilize more social media networks to drive sales and customer engagements. Lastly, IKEA should focus their next campaign on either driving more in-store sales or more online sales, not both. Concentrating on both types of sales at the same time is way too much work. I think that if IKEA made these changes, they would see better results in this campaign.
References:
Barney, J. B. (1995). Looking inside for a competitive advantage. Academy of Management Executive, 9(4), 49-61.
Beagrie, S. (2004). How to…conduct a SWOT analysis. Personnel Today, 21.
Benner, E. (2011). IKEA: A Brand; A Lifestyle. Retrieved July 13, 2019, from http://emilybenner.weebly.com/uploads/7/7/5/1/7751089/ikeafinal.pdf.
Blakeman, R. (2015). Integrated marketing communication: Creative strategy from idea to implementation(2nd ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
