Tag: ikea

Ikea PS 2014 Instagram Website

You open Instagram and land on Ikea_ps_2014. The grid does not look like a typical brand feed. Each tile behaves like a navigation button. Benches. Tables. Storage. You tap a category image, reveal hidden tags, and jump straight into product views. Instagram becomes the website.

The idea. A catalog built inside Instagram

Ikea has made a name for itself as a trustworthy and affordable source of stylish home decor. In Russia, to promote the PS 2014 collection, Ikea teams up with Moscow-based agency Instinct to approach Instagram in an entirely new way.

How it works. Categories in the grid, products in the tags

The Ikea_ps_2014 Instagram account serves as the campaign website. Each post represents a product category like benches or tables. When you tap a category image, hidden tags reveal “links” to the products within that category.

Here, “hidden tags” are simply Instagram photo tags used as tap targets, so navigation stays inside native Instagram behavior.

Every one of the 34 items in the collection also receives its own Instagram account. For example ps_laptop_station and ps_side_table.

The real question is whether you can turn a platform habit into structured product discovery without forcing people out of the app.

In consumer brands promoting a collection across many items, this pattern uses a social grid as a lightweight category tree.

Why it matters. An app used beyond its intended design

The Instagram app is certainly never meant to be an Ikea catalog website. The mechanism is simple: category posts behave like menu tiles, and tags behave like links, so thumbs do what they already do in Instagram. That is why the experience feels like browsing, not “clicking out”. This is worth copying when the native UI can carry the journey end-to-end, not when you need heavy comparison, configuration, or checkout.

Extractable takeaway: If a platform already has a grid, a tag system, and a tap habit, you can repurpose those primitives into navigation and keep discovery inside one familiar surface.

Where it connects. Earlier “feed as experience” examples

Earlier this year, Mazda and JWT Canada turned the car-maker’s Instagram feed into an interactive road trip, replacing specs with images and videos that followed the vehicle on an epic adventure. Over the course of four months, the campaign “Long Drive Home” helped grow Mazda Canada’s Instagram following by more than 300%.

Similarly, the Toronto Silent Film Festival turned its feed tsff2014 on its side, creating an interactive timeline complete with factoids and video clips to celebrate Charlie Chaplin’s 100 years on film.

What to copy from this build

  • Start with categories. Treat the grid as a menu so users can self-select a path.
  • Use tags as links. Turn existing tap targets into jumps to deeper product views.
  • Keep the journey native. Let the platform’s follow, view, and tag behaviors do the work.
  • Design for scan first. Make each tile legible as navigation, not just as content.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the Ikea PS 2014 Instagram website?

A campaign that uses an Instagram account as a navigable catalog. Grid posts act as categories, and photo tags act as links to product accounts.

How do people navigate it?

Users tap category images in the grid, reveal the photo tags, and jump to specific product pages inside Instagram.

What is the key execution detail?

Each PS 2014 product gets its own Instagram account, so exploration happens via Instagram’s native follow, view, and tag behaviors.

Why does this work on mobile?

It turns a familiar mobile habit, browsing a feed, into structured discovery without forcing users into a new interface.

What is the transferable pattern?

Treat platform constraints as UI elements. Build navigation out of what the platform already provides instead of fighting it.

Ikea RGB Billboard

German ad agency Thjnk and production studio I Made This teamed up to create a unique RGB Billboard that revealed different messages depending on the colored lights.

The billboard featured three different messages in three different colors. Cyan, magenta and yellow. At night, the billboard was lit up by red, green and blue (RGB) light bulbs, which made the different messages visible depending on the shining light bulb.

The red showed the cyan text. The green made the magenta text visible. And the blue light revealed the yellow text. With this simple visual trick, the billboard made the most of its limited space and embodied IKEA’s space-saving message.

How the RGB trick works

The idea leans on a simple perception hack, meaning the light color determines which printed layer stands out to the eye. You print multiple messages in different ink colors, then you control which one becomes dominant by changing the light color that hits the surface.

By switching between red, green, and blue lighting, the billboard effectively “filters” what you see. One physical surface. Multiple readable layers. No moving parts required. That works because each light color makes one printed layer readable while pushing the others back.

In crowded retail and FMCG environments, that kind of space efficiency matters because one surface often has to carry more than one job.

Why this is a very IKEA way to communicate

IKEA’s promise often comes down to doing more with less space. This billboard does the same thing. It demonstrates the benefit while delivering the message. The medium becomes the proof.

Extractable takeaway: When the medium visibly demonstrates the product promise, the ad explains itself faster and sticks longer.

What the idea is trying to do for the brand

The real question is not whether people notice the trick, but whether the trick makes IKEA’s value proposition easier to remember.

That is exactly the right move for out-of-home. The business intent is to turn a space-saving claim into a live demonstration, so one billboard works as both message and proof.

What to borrow for your next OOH idea

  • Make the constraint the concept. Limited space becomes the creative engine.
  • Use a mechanism people can explain. “Different lights reveal different messages” travels fast.
  • Build a repeatable reveal. The change over time, or over conditions like day and night, creates a reason to look twice.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the IKEA RGB Billboard?

It is a billboard designed to reveal different messages depending on whether it is lit by red, green, or blue light.

Who created it?

German ad agency Thjnk and production studio I Made This.

How many messages did it contain?

Three messages, printed in cyan, magenta, and yellow.

What lighting was used at night?

Red, green, and blue (RGB) light bulbs.

Why was it a good fit for IKEA?

It demonstrated a space-saving principle by making one billboard placement do the work of multiple messages.

Ikea Social Catalogue

IKEA has been innovating every year with their classic paper catalog. In Norway they decide to take this classic paper catalog and make a social media version of it. With zero budget, they ask their 130,000 Facebook and Instagram fans to post the page of their favourite product on Instagram and add the hashtag #ikeakatalogen, for the chance of winning that product.

How the Social Catalogue works

The mechanic is intentionally lightweight. Here, “mechanic” means the single action IKEA asks for. One public photo of a catalogue page plus one hashtag. IKEA asks fans to pick their favourite item from the catalogue, photograph the page, and post it publicly so the product becomes discoverable through personal networks. Over time, more and more items get documented and shared by real people, effectively recreating the catalogue as a social feed.

In retail and consumer brands with large owned distribution like catalogues, the cheapest growth loops come from turning existing browsing moments into public signals.

The real question is whether your owned channel can become a prompt people want to publicly share, instead of a one-way broadcast they only consume.

Why print is the trigger, not the limitation

Most brands treat print as a one-way broadcast. Here, print is the starting gun. The physical catalogue becomes the prompt that drives people online, and the content that fuels sharing is already in consumers’ hands. Print is not the limitation. It is the trigger when you design the handoff into social indexing.

Extractable takeaway: If you can turn an owned, offline touchpoint into a simple public posting behaviour, you get both social proof and a self-building product index without paying for equivalent distribution.

The growth loop is built into social behaviour

The “social” part is not a slogan. It is distribution mechanics. The hashtag makes individual posts browsable beyond the poster’s own network, so every new post increases discoverability for the next one. When someone posts their chosen page, their network sees it. That drives curiosity, repeats the behaviour, and compounds reach without buying equivalent media.

What to steal

  • Use an owned asset as the trigger. The catalogue is already shipped. The campaign rides that distribution.
  • Make participation effortless. One photo and one hashtag, then you are in.
  • Let the audience do the indexing. Fans effectively organise and surface products through what they choose to share.
  • Reward desire, not trivia. The prize is the exact thing the person already wants.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the IKEA Social Catalogue?

A campaign that turns the printed IKEA catalogue into a social feed by asking people to photograph and share their favourite pages with #ikeakatalogen for a chance to win the featured product.

What is the core behaviour it uses?

People naturally share things they want. The campaign turns that impulse into distribution and product discovery.

What does the hashtag do in this mechanic?

It collects individual posts into one browsable stream, so products stay discoverable beyond the original poster’s friends and followers.

Why is this effective for retail?

Because it turns product browsing into social proof, and social proof into incremental reach, without asking people to learn a new behaviour.

What is the simplest version to replicate?

Pick one existing owned channel, define one shareable action, and reward the exact item the person publicly chooses.