Ikea, one of the world’s leading furniture and home appliances manufacturing company, is once again in the news; this time, for their weirdest promotion act. The company promises to offer a discounted crib if pregnant women urinate on their ad published in a Swedish magazine.
Amelia is a popular women oriented magazine where Ikea published their message as, “Peeing on this ad may change your life.”
As the ad post itself elaborates, this is more like a pregnancy test for ladies who will disclose whether they have conceived or not.
According Ad Week, the advertisement contains a strip which will reveal a discount after a woman urinates on it, only if they have conceived. Ikea has used a technology same as in any at-home pregnancy test.
The technology works by identifying sufficient amount of pregnancy hormone hCG.
The only difference is that while the colour of the strip changes in a home pregnancy test kit, in Ikea advertisement, a SUNDVIK crib in black brown discloses. It’s a coupon through which eligible candidates can avail the discount on the product. The discounted price of SUNDVIK crib (originally priced at 995 krona) is 495 krona.
The strategic campaign has been planned and executed by Akestam Holst along with Mercene Labs (a chemical manufacturer).
Elaborating the motive behind this unique approach, the ad agency said, “For making the ad interactive practically, we had to work on various technical innovations.”
Akestam Holst has used pregnancy test strip which depends on the antibodies binding hCG to change the colour. To transform this into a physical, printed format, Mercene Labs utilized their expertise in developing surface active material for medical diagnostics and microfluidics.
They also claim that these technical advancements can enhance medical diagnostics in future.
“Products of Ikea are all life-inspired and every one of us is a big part of life at home. Life has those magical moments which Ikea wishes to be a part of,” informed Ikea via an email.
On questioning whether the campaign will be released in US markets, Ikea said, “We have created this advertisement as a part of ‘where life happens’ campaign which is specifically for the Swedish population. As of now, we don’t have any plans of placing it in other markets.”