50 years of Ikea Switzerland: How Brinkertlück, TBWA\ Zurich and Erdmannpeisker celebrate the anniversary
Hey? Hi! Fifty years ago, the first IKEA store opened in Switzerland. We’re celebrating—with a birthday campaign that focuses on the values that define our identity and our social responsibility.
Spreitenbach, 1973: Ikea opens its first store outside Scandinavia - here in Switzerland. And "Hej" becomes "Hoi" for the first time. Ikea Switzerland is now celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The furniture store has engaged three Swiss agencies for the first campaign flight. With different focuses, TBWA\ Zurich, Erdmannpeisker and Brinkertlück Switzerland are working on a common mission: celebrating the history of Ikea here in Switzerland. After all, the Swedes brought a completely new form of furniture shopping fifty years ago. Against this backdrop, the agencies are staging the best-known and most popular design classics from Älmhult on the one hand - and on the other, they are thematizing the transformation that fundamentally changed Swiss living styles 50 years ago. All this in the familiar Ikea style: colorful, optimistic and with the typical wink.
VBZ full-fledged streetcar
The result is, among other things, a full-fledged VBZ streetcar that looks like an Ikea furniture store on the outside and offers a detailed time travel through five decades of product design on the inside. The streetcar fullbranding, conceived by Erdmannpeisker, thus pays homage to the well-known "blue Ikea box" as well as the many classics from past decades. Brinkertlück penned the concept and copy-writing for the accompanying communication campaign, which was further developed visually in a co-creative approach. The final polish of the modular design grid was realized by the TBWA\ Zurich team, which stages brand statements and product icons on megaposters and out-of-home placements nationwide.
In its birthday campaign, Ikea Switzerland focuses on its identity-forming values and social responsibility. For example, Ikea Switzerland has been using energy-saving LED lighting exclusively since 2015, and in 2020 it introduced "Buyback Friday" for used furniture as a counterbalance to "Black Friday" - last but not least, gender equality is a matter of course at Ikea, with new fathers entitled to eight weeks' paternity leave.
Megaposters, (D)OOH measures and the streetcar fullbranding are the start of the anniversary campaign. Many other measures in and outside the furniture stores are planned.
Client: Ikea Switzerland, Marketing. Conception: Brinkertlück Switzerland. Design: TBWA\ Zurich; Tram conception, layout and design: Erdmannpeisker; Tram production: Christinger.
