I’ve been a firm believer for some time now that the current show-and-tell form of advertising will die out in favor of a pass-along style. In this I mean that when an advertiser tells me something, it’s somewhat like that guy laughing to himself on the street corner, throwing out taunts at passers-by. People around him know it’s happening, but they tend to just ignore him, or switch sides of the street. Imagine this crazy guy is telling you about this great new couch from Ikea and what your reaction would be.
Now instead imagine that your friend is saying they really like this couch, you should take a look at it. The message is identical, but the format is different, and the likelihood of you paying attention – and at the very least looking at the couch – has increased substantially.
The next issue with traditional advertising is that media is expensive. Paying for advertising is a major expense, and when it’s not working particularly well it is difficult to justify. If you can get people to willingly talk about your brand, and not only look for themselves but pass it along to a friend, your investment in advertising has a much greater return.
Ikea has taken a great step forward with this new Facebook campaign. They are creating a page for a store manager and having him post photos of Ikea showrooms. The first person to tag an item in the photo with their name gets that item for free.
This in itself is small potatoes, a minor giveaway that any small store could run for themselves. The great part of this campaign is the wildfire-like spread. When a user tags the item in the photo, that tag shows up in their feed. They’ve willingly said to everyone they follow, “I like this table from Ikea.” Their friends are now more likely to click through and look at that table and potentially tag something themselves, showing the items they like best to all THEIR friends.
Ikea’s media expense is likely $0. This is a normal Facebook page, not a purchased fan page. They aren’t advertising this campaign, as far as I know, so it’s an organic spread. Even the cost off creating the campaign is likely reduced, as the production costs would be lower.
I’d really like to see the numbers from this exercise. I’m not sure how this would be measurable in sales dollars, but the awareness would likely be huge. Kudos to Forsman and Bodenfors for an interesting and unique approach to spreading their client’s word.
