For reasons known only to the pop-culture gods, Ikea — the Swedish retailer of cheap, lingonberry-flavored furniture and other Shinola — suddenly has become a ubiquitous presence in the ether. Example: In August, when the 2010 Ikea catalog came out, people went utterly bonkers because the designers had changed the print font from the familiar Futura to Verdana — an esoteric difference, to be sure. The story rocketed to No. 2 on CNN.com‘s most-read list, according to Mona Astra Liss, Ikea’s director of public relations. But for the passing of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the story might have gone to No. 1.
My colleague David Pierson’s story about Chinese customers flaking out at the Beijing Ikea store — even taking naps on the beds — camped at the No. 1 spot on the Los Angeles Times’ Web site for two days last month.
What’s your zeitgeist-y preoccupation? Terrorism? A couple of Scottish kids on trial this week allegedly considered taking out the local Ikea with a Columbine-style attack. Environmentalism? Ellen Ruppel Shell’s new book “Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture” slags supposedly enviro-friendly Ikea for supporting a throwaway materialism and encouraging the destruction of Chinese and Russian forests.
Meet me in Burbank
It seems wherever you look, like Tom Joad, Ikea will be there.
Ground zero of Ikea’s mind-share is, strangely enough, the Burbank store. No fewer than three popular viral videos and one rather large motion picture have been shot there in the past three years. In the film “(500) Days of Summer,” Tom and Summer romp through the Burbank store, playing house amid the store dioramas of modern kitchens and bedroom furniture. The Burbank store also furnished the backdrop for last year’s Ikea-funded Web TV series “Easy to Assemble,” which followed actress Illeana Douglas as she struggled to adapt to the life of a schlub in blue and gold Polo shirt “… I mean, an Ikea team member.
“Easy to Assemble,” which got picked by CBS for its www.tv.com outlet, was a fairly radical bit of marketing. It was stone-cold branded entertainment — the Ikea logo is in every shot. And yet, Ikea also gave Douglas and her collaborators room to gently mock Ikea, right down to the tiny pencils.
“Obviously, the nature of our brand is very playful,” Liss says.
Beyond playful
That playfulness, however, is being tested. In 2006, Web auteur Sean Sahlin surreptitiously shot a parody of MTV’s “The Real World” inside the Burbank store. “The Real World: Ikea” ends with the five cast members bickering and screaming obscenities at one another in a classic “Real World” dust-up. As the Ikea staff pushes through a crowd of horrified customers to break up the disturbance, one cast member takes off his clothes. The Burbank cops are called. Everybody runs for the doors.
“The Real World: Ikea” sums up the dilemma marketeers face when users — on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, wherever — take it upon themselves to offer their own valentines to their brands. Obviously, Ikea doesn’t want to sanction disorder in the Burbank store. But how can it walk away from 136,160 viewings on YouTube.com? How can it leave all that coolness on the table?
