Ikea, the home and furniture company, is very well-known for its affordable, minimalist affordable products.
Even though IKEA is the world’s largest furniture retailer, they’re not immune to gimmicky ads to get the attention of their consumers. The new ad for an Ikea Crib, however, may be the craziest one we’ve seen in some time.
The ad for the Sundvik crib looks innocent at first glance. It features a picture of the Ikea crib, styled with a blanket and mobile. The words above the crib read, “Peeing on this ad may change your life.”
And…. it’s not a typo.
Ikea, in fact, wants anyone with a uterus to pee on their ad.
Ok, they don’t actually want people to pee all over the advertisement.
At the bottom of the full-page magazine ad is a strip that functions like a pregnancy test. When a pregnant woman’s urine is placed on the strip, a discount coupon for the Ikea crib will magically appear on the page, just below the standard retail price.
The coupon discounts the price of the crib down to $495, a discount of a little more than 50%.
I’m sure many would absolutely pee on an ad to save five-hundred bucks.
How The Ikea Crib Ad Works
Ikea’s advertising agency, Åkestam Holst, worked with Mercene Labs to create this clever ad. AdWeek spoke with the agency about the work that went into making the advertisement a reality.
“In order to make the interactive functions of this ad work in reality, we had to make several technical advancements. The pregnancy test strip was used as a starting point, which relies on antibodies that bind to the pregnancy hormone hCG, resulting in a color change.“For scaling up of this technique and adopting it to the physical format of a printed ad, Mercene Labs has used their experience in development of surface active materials for microfluidics and medical diagnostics. Careful selection of materials, together with a controlled capillary flow have been crucial for the success of this project. Technical advancements made during the work with this campaign have the potential to improve medical diagnostics.”
It’s Strange, yes but it certainly has generated a lot of attention, which is kind of the point.
A few other people also pointed out some issues with the advertisement.
“I don’t know about all of you, but I have a lot of questions about this.
~Do a woman HAVE TO pee on the ad to get the discount? Like, would they turn away a woman who is clearly nine months pregnant just because she didn’t pee on the ad?
~Seriously, what about adoptive parents?
~Is there fine-print that says, “Please cut off the part you peed on before you bring this urine-soaked ad into our store,” because there should be.
~Do the Ikea cashiers get gloves? Or hazard pay?
Considering pregnancy tests are pricey, buying a magazine with this ad sounds like a cheap way to find out if you’re pregnant.
The ad is currently only in the Swedish magazine Amelia, which Åkestam Holst says is one of Sweden’s most influential magazines for women.
Clever marketing?