IKEA: A model of media convergence

IKEA is an international home products Swedish corporation that designs and sells ready to assemble furniture, appliances and home accessories. It is the world’s largest furniture retailer (Wikipedia). In becoming the world’s largest furniture retailer, IKEA has utilized the mass media to reach its target audiences. The most extensively used mass medium has been the Internet. IKEA's website and social media are highly interactive which allows their target audiences to be active. Thus, IKEA has done something right. The following paragraphs discuss this “something right” with some suggestions on how to improve on it.

IKEA’s website (ww.ikea.com) is interactive from the moment the audience enters it. The audience must select which country or location they are in; Europe, North America, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Caribbean. For our purposes, the United States website will be discussed. When the audience selects the United States, they are overwhelmed by the wealth of information and interactivity that displays.

Beginning at the top, one sees Ask Anna!. Anna, in my opinion, is a creepy looking woman with brown hair, blue eyes and bright red lipstick. When Ask Anna! is selected, a side page pops up; titled IKEA Help Center. Anna’s creepiness only increases in the pop up as she frequently blinks, tilts her head and smiles. Perhaps, IKEA was going for a “realistic” automated online assistant; if so they achieved it. Ask Anna!, in reality, is a search tool. I only used Anna to do a simple search for the term “bedroom”. Anna came back with the statement that my web browser has a security restriction, which requires me to open a new window; to which Anna offered a link. This link opened to the bedroom section of the website.
Following along the top, is a link to visit the mobile site. This is obviously geared towards mobile phones. The main feature is the ability to find an IKEA store. There is also discounts and specials, a monthly poll, and the ability to sign up for email, text messages and the catalog. IPhone users have the opportunity to download two applications as well; IKEA catalog and Lekar.

IKEA also offers their target audience the opportunity to join their email list. This feature allows for many of the same features as the mobile site. The tag phrase is “let the inspiration come to you.” IKEA allows this to be done through inspirational emails/updates, special offers, news and events, mobile texts and catalog requests. The catalog can also be requested by mail in print form rather than online form.

The most interactive feature on the website is under special offers; the IKEA Planner Tools. The planner tools allow for the target audiences to design their own kitchen. First, one must enter the exact measurements of their kitchen. The rest of the room must then be laid out included in this is the addition of doors and windows, fixtures including plumbing and gas, electricity, heat, and ventilation. After doing the initial set-up, one can select, by drop and drag, cabinets, appliances, accessories, wall panels, and much more.  After designing the kitchen, one can use the interactive features to make changes, view the design in 3D and save, print or email. The best part of the feature, in my opinion, is the ability to print the design with all the measurements, the cost and a list of the products.
Although, this feature is an interactive tool that engages the audience, it is not an easy interactive tool. The initial installation is difficult; one must drag the application into the plug in and then restart the browser.  The initial set-up of the room is difficult as well. Not every member of the target audience knows the dimensions of their room, windows and doors or where the plumbing or ventilation is located. Thus, I find it more suited for someone with an architecture or construction background; it is not the “average” user friendly.

In each of the departments on the website, there are different interactive features as well. For example, when one selects the bedroom tab the page loads with a scrolling pop up containing “mini” selective images. When an image is selected the room appears larger on the screen.  Within the image is product information of major pieces and “+” symbols that can be selected. Each symbol offers something unique; one can learn how to hang pictures in harmony or view organized drawers. Within the department, one can also use the guide, which in the bedroom department offers advice on mattresses, view each series, or view each individual product.

The website also has the “typical” online shopping feature. A user can login to their account, which allows them to save products in their cart. The unique feature associated with the shopping cart is the shopping list. The list allows the user to print out what they wish to purchase. The user thus can bring the list to the store and purchase the products. The shopping list also checks each stores availability of the product and relays the information to the user.

Finally, the website contains a press room. The press room containers information for those in the media, PR, marketing, and advertising worlds. Included in the press room are press releases, press contacts, press kits, images, and “home ideas” newsletter. This feature is a useful one-stop location for anyone needing information in the previous discussed fields; and more.

IKEA also targets audiences through television. Recently, IKEA teamed up with A&E to produce a program called “Fix this Kitchen.” The concept is that celebrity chefs surprise homeowners with a complete kitchen makeover fit for a gourmet chef. The first show aired on October 16 at 10:00 AM. The show is much like other “home improvement shows” only with a focus on IKEA products. The IKEA website contains a link to the show

IKEA is also highly involved in social media. The first form of social media that I examined was Twitter. IKEA has many different Twitter accounts for different countries and even accounts for individual stores in major cities. One negative I saw from having so many different profiles is that it was somewhat difficult to know exactly which profile was the real IKEA. Although IKEA Italia (which had its content written in Italian) was the most popular Twitter profile with 3,716 followers, the two English-written profiles that I considered to be the main ones were IKEAliving and IKEAfans.

IKEAliving, with 2,721 followers, has content that consists mostly of answering questions that customers have about IKEA products and also to showcase products. IKEAfans, with 2,789 followers, is not a profile maintained by IKEA but rather, it is maintained by the outside website www.IKEAfans.com. This profile’s content consists of communications between IKEA customers as well as help and troubleshooting tips for different IKEA products.

IKEAfans.com is a website that proclaims it is “Personalizing the IKEA experience.” According to the website they “are not affiliated with IKEA in any way; we are not IKEA co-workers, partners, affiliates, sales representatives, nor are we sponsored, financially or otherwise, by IKEA - we do this for fun!” Even though this site is not managed by IKEA, I think it is worth talking about because it seems to be a very good online asset for the company. IKEAfans.com’s goal is to supply information for “investigating, planning, assembling and installing IKEA products.” The site contains listings of good deals on IKEA products, links to IKEA-related blogs, a forum with various IKEA topics, picture galleries that show products as well as plans and diagrams for furniture arrangements, and “IKEApedia.” IKEApedia is a section of the site that contains downloadable instructions manuals and buying guides, store directories, and other IKEA information. The blogs that are linked from IKEAfans.com involve mostly postings to update other users about the progress of their remodeling projects or to review IKEA products, but they are also used as personal blogs too.

The next social media platform that I examined was IKEA’s Youtube channel. Like IKEA’s involvment in Twitter, there are multiple IKEA channels for different countries. The IKEA USA channel has only 15 videos but it is also the most popular channel with 1,716 subscribers. Most of the videos on this channel are a cooking show that promotes IKEA’s food products but there are also a few commercial-like videos that promotes IKEA’s furniture. The IKEA Youtube channel with the most videos is called IKEA Products. This channel has 143 videos but only 2 subscribers because the videos are very boring and simply showcase Ikea products.

Last, but not least, is the social media giant, Facebook. Again, IKEA has multiple Facebook pages, but the most popular one is IKEA USA with 127,867 fans. The content that is managed by the actual IKEA profile is mostly messages that spread the word about promotions done by IKEA. The page also contains pictures (mostly of IKEA products) from both the fans of the page and the page itself. The postings from the page’s fans are almost all positive and talk about IKEA products that they bought or simply how much they love IKEA. One thing that I liked about this fan page is that it shows IKEA as a very environmentally conscious business and that it cares for the community. Other IKEA Facebook pages are not as professional or official as this one, and they also have more negative postings from “fans.”

Overall, I believe that IKEA is doing a very good job with its media convergence. But, as a company that does much of its business online, it is not surprising that it has been able to employ these tactics so well. Although there are a few negatives to what IKEA has done, I would have to say that the vast majority is positive.

Ikea presentation

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