The wonderful every night

IKEA has been named a winner of an APG Creative Strategy Award for a clever UK campaign promoting sleep – “Tomorrow Starts Tonight.”

Along with many traditional retailers, IKEA was losing ground to specialist bed and mattress retailers. Its response was to begin talking more assertively about sleep, reframe the competition, and turn its “generalist” reputation from a drawback into an advantage.

It set the stage with an online spot called “The Hare,” which uses the fable of the Tortoise and Hare to tell a story about the importance of sleep.

IKEA turned its “jack of all trades” reputation on its head by showing how a broad range of its products beyond beds and mattresses – like speakers, dimming lights, and air filters – contribute to better sleep.

And it clowned on the nascent and slightly dodgy sleep wellness industry with a series of metaphorical ads that illustrated that IKEA products actually deliver on some of the vacuous promises made by the purveyors of drinks, creams, and supplements that promote better sleep.

The result – increased purchase intent scores for bedroom furniture at IKEA and an impressive short-term ROI to the brand.