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IKEA’s Clever Banner: Ugly, Difficult To Use And Utterly Perfect At Making Its Point

Written by Evan Schuman
April 26th, 2012

One of the problems with Web ads that try to be clever or funny is that they are rarely strategic. So they might be really funny—and get passed along to many prospects—but customers remember the situation and not the brand. Or they remember the brand, but not any positive attribute. IKEA, though, has crafted an almost unreadable Web ad that is positively brilliant at making its point.

The point of the campaign is that IKEA makes a wide range of furniture to fit in almost any space. So in what the chain is calling “the smallest IKEA store in the world,” it has made a 10.5×8.8 centimeter banner ad that literally lists some 2,800 products. It’s done by mousing over parts of the ad to reveal more and more products. In this rare situation, the Web ad is ugly, difficult to use and utterly perfect at making its point. IKEA discussed it in a one-minute video.

Posted in E-Commerce
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