IKEA: Soffa Sans, 3

Credits & Description:

Agency: Proximity London
Client: Ikea
Product: Sofa planning tool
Title: Sofa Sans
Media: Digital (Twitter)
Country: United Kingdom
Date Of Campaign: June 2019
Background: Everything IKEA does has hidden creativity that solves problems, often problems people don’t really notice, like water pooling in upturned cups in the dishwasher so they never dry properly. IKEA cups have a groove that drains the water out. It is part of their design philosophy that creates THE WONDERFUL EVERYDAY.
Idea: Our strategy was to be patient, to use social listening to listen until something, anything, conversation worthy about the Sofa Planning Tool cropped up, then jump on it, make it a bigger story and put it in front of a bigger audience who’d find it interesting and memorable.
Results: The creative approach was designed to maximise PR and social reach by intersecting an audience of design geeks and mainstream tech interests. We were confident that design blogs, tech blogs and mainstream nerdist types would take up our story. To make sure they did, the font was co-created - we rewarded people with a free sofa for helping us to finish the font, by creating the punctuation marks. Therefore, the final version was completed by the public - extending the conversation, driving to the tool and encouraging the sharing of designs.

While on the lookout for ways to expose the hidden creativity in everything IKEA does, Proximity London found a group of people subverting the sofa planning tool for their own amusement; drawing spiral, labyrinthian and phallic sofas. In response they released the IKEA Soffa Sans font, built from 38 different sofa configurations using the planning tool. In 48hrs Soffia Sans generated 84.2m impressions and over 13,000 references on social. Organic traffic to the tool increased by 6,695% and the average time spent within the planning tool increased by 1,023%.