Agency spreads Ikea sofa photos around Facebook

by Jennifer Whitehead, Brand Republic 25-Nov-09, 14:15

LONDON - Swedish agency Forsman and Bodenfors is behind an innovative campaign to promote the opening of a new Ikea store using Facebook photo tagging.

The campaign was based around a simple competition using the existing Facebook photo tagging tool which allowed people to identify themselves and friends in photos uploaded to the social networking site.

Forsman and Bodenfors created a Facebook profile for the new Malmo store manager, Gordon Gustavsson, and uploaded photos of Ikea showrooms.

Members were then encouraged to go in to the photos and tag items with their names, to give them the chance of winning that object.

The photos were then spread around Facebook, appearing in members' news feeds.

The campaign was run from Forsman and Bodenfors' Gothenburg office. Art director Adam Ulvegarde says that the idea of using Facebook along with the traditional store launch local media strategy was to reach an audience beyond just Malmo.

Ulvegarde said: "The Malmo store is the most modern store to date and we wanted everyone in Sweden to know about it, but with limited means."

As word about the campaign spread, Ulvegarde says that photos were tagged within seconds of being uploaded. The agency was unable to keep count of the number of times photos were tagged in the end.

Forsman and Bodenfors has a long-standing relationship with Ikea, dating back to 1996.