‘OOH delivers high brand recall’

When IKEA, an international home furnishing brand planned to enter in India, nobody had anticipated that their biggest Indian store launch, primarily, will be OOH driven and secondly, it will include a whole gamut of static, digital as well as new technology outdoor formats connecting with the masses everywhere and every time. Therefore, to understand the strategy which sets them apart, Outdoor Asia initiated an interaction with Ulf Smedberg, Country Marketing Manager – IKEA India.

The biggest promotional strategy maintained by the brand was to employ such format which builds the brand awareness with a dash of engagement where OOH fitted perfectly the bill. Elaborating on this, Ulf said, “OOH is a key medium to engage traffic and Hyderabad is a metro city. This medium contributes in generating high recall. The OOH campaign was planned in separate phases where communication was designed for brand awareness, walk-ins to the Hej Home - our experience centre where consumers could get an experience of IKEA products - and most importantly to announce the launch date of the store.”

While the OOH strategy was to build the brand awareness in Hyderabad, create anticipation for the store opening and contribute in increasing footfalls to the store, the Sweden based brand exploited almost every transit avenue of the city with an aim to reach out to the maximum people, engage them and inspire them about what the brand can really do in an unexpected environment, shared Ulf.

The gamut of their OOH promotions included:
• VR activity in auto-rickshaws, where the brand brought its home furnishing inspiration together with iconic IKEA products -- showing the attractive prices.
• Revamped AC bus-stands with IKEA products and solutions.
• IKEA cartons on conveyor belt at airport, an activity to create awareness about the brand’s flat packs.
• Life size IKEA kids chairs (MAMMUT) were placed at key locations in the city -- called CHAIR MINAR, to bring the typical IKEA tongue-in-cheek marketing style but also add the local relevance to IKEA and Hyderabad.
• Hyper-local cab branding.
• Metro train branding, showing home furnishing inspiration in a new environment.
• Countdown ticker on billboard

Explaining about the media planning parameters, Ulf elaborated, “The campaign was built on identifying the share of voice. The core thinking behind selection of media was basis the traffic flow, iconic locations around the store and ensuring that there is a blend of commercial locations, high traffic locations and relevant residential locations. Further to this, outdoor analytics tools from Mindshare supported the task and brought in the right mix of traditional and transit mediums in controlled environments.”