Hearing IKEA

Who would have imagined that a company started in 1943 by a Swedish carpenter, selling unpronounceable do-it-yourself products, would go on to become one of the most successful in the world? IKEA is synonymous with flat-pack, affordable furniture you construct yourself. But when you pull apart the IKEA consumer experience, you discover it breaks so many rules. IKEA is a classic case of a brand-led rather than consumer-led approach to marketing.

IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad was obsessed with frugality. Even though he was one of the wealthiest people in the world, he always travelled in economy, drove an old Volvo and preferred discreet rather than overt displays of wealth. On one level, it was this Swedish utilitarianism that shaped IKEA's identity of functional design at an affordable price. As IKEA's former design manager Lars Engman summed it up, ‘Sweden created the Volvo, Italy the Ferrari.' At a deeper level, Kamprad's vision weaves through the entire organisation. IKEA has been able to deliver low-cost design at the same time as steadfastly remaining true to its brand, rather than what a consumer might want. This includes a shopping experience that on the face of it is sub-par. IKEA's success is because of, not despite, the challenging shopping experience. Let me explain.

IKEA gets my vote for the least consumer-driven brand in the world. The Swedish behemoth seems to take pride in making the shopping experience as difficult as possible. Not only that, it forces consumers, after purchasing their products, to construct the items themselves.

Here is a typical user experience for an IKEA shopper:

1. A couple needs a child's desk and browses through an IKEA catalogue.
2. They decide to visit the nearest IKEA store, which is 45 minutes' drive from their house. Because it's the weekend, the place is crowded.
3. They park the car and enter the store. Once inside they are forced to follow a tightly defined route covering most of the warehouse-sized store. They see the desk they like and make a note of its number. They see other items they want, marking down the numbers.
4. After time in the store, they arrive at the collection area. In addition to finding and collecting their items, they make impulse purchases, claiming it will be a long time before they subject themselves to this nightmare again so they may as well stock up.
5. They look for assistance but can't find anyone, so sort it out for themselves using a tape measure, their hands and forearms.
6. They navigate an awkwardly loaded trolley of items to the cash register and pay.
7. They fill the car with flat-pack boxes and drive home.
8. When they finally arrive home, they unpack the car and start to construct the furniture. It doesn't quite match the other furniture in the house, but it wasn't expensive and will serve its purpose. The couple collapse on the couch with a glass of wine and gently rib each other about how crap they are at constructing IKEA furniture.

What was the total cost?

Desk

How many hours did it take?

A customer-centric approach would be very different. This is the likely scenario:

1. A catalogue would only be available online. There would also be an option to purchase online.
2. There are several brick-and-mortar stores located around the city that are closer to more people and more accessible.
3. The website indicates if items are in stock. If unavailable, an alert will be sent by email.
4. Delivery would be available.
5. In the stores, there's no silly maze and people can walk however they like.
6. After finding an item in the store, a shopper tells the salesperson what they want. The order is put in and paid for. They don't have to go searching for it from a large warehouse shelf. It's delivered to their home.
7. The shoppers drive home.
8. The furniture is delivered already constructed or constructed on-site by the store staff.

What was the total cost?

How many hours did it take?

You can probably guess where I'm going with this. I hope it illustrates that a consumer-centric approach means less money and less time spent with the brand. And there's a difference you may not have picked up on. In the latter scenario, there's no glass of wine, no gentle ribbing and no experience. It might be much easier for the consumer, but, paradoxically, it offers less value to them.

How has IKEA been so successful despite, or because of, the shopping experience? It comes down to one word: effort. Consumers have to put effort into buying items at IKEA, and because of this they value the things more highly. Marketers and brand builders often talk about the need to reduce effort and to make things as easy as possible for the consumer. This thinking is not invalid. Removing friction and effort has led to increased profitability. However, the opposite is also true. We sometimes make choices precisely because they require effort.

The effort paradox

The insight that consumers feel rewarded from exerting effort would not have been uncovered by a researcher or from consumer mapping journey. IKEA – like Apple — will go down in history as the least consumer-centric brand in the world. The more difficult IKEA makes it for the consumer, the better it is for the brand. A research paper titled ‘The Effort Paradox: Effort is both costly and valued' reveals that, contrary to the view that humans avoid tasks that involve effort, the opposite is also true. Effort can add value. ‘Not only can the same outcomes be more rewarding if we apply more (not less) effort, sometimes we select options precisely because they require effort.'¹ IKEA pushes many of these effort triggers, including:

• cognitive dissonance and error justification
• need for cognition
• sunk cost effect
• the IKEA effect
• learned industriousness.

What about Apple?

Some companies don't rely on research. Nike is one. Apple is another. As Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs said in Businessweek in 1998, ‘It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.' Many of us believed Apple didn't conduct market research and instead relied on the creativity of its designers and the omnipresent strength of its brand. But it would appear Apple's relationship with research is more complicated. In 2012, Apple had a legal battle with Samsung and Apple's VP of Product Marketing argued its research should be exempt from the hearings. The claim was unsuccessful and the world discovered Apple did do market research, although it was less traditional (focus groups) and more usability focused (observational). Yet Apple is still a flag-waving champion for a company that puts its brand and brand experience ahead of the consumer wants or needs.

Consider the long list of product irritations initiated by Apple:

• Consumers hate it when products quickly become out of date or break down, and they have to purchase a new one. Even worse is planned obsolescence, where the manufacturer deliberately plans for a product to become obsolete. This practise is illegal in many countries. Yet has anyone noticed their phone slowing down following a so-called ‘upgrade'?
• The cords, dongles and power adapters continuously change. Anyone with an Apple product has to have a bag full of obsolete dongles and cables.
• The system steadfastly rejects or operates poorly with non-Apple accessories.
• Apple products, especially the iPhone, are expensive compared to near-identical competitors.
• The repairs are expensive, and so too are the accessories: like, really expensive.

There are other annoyances, but these are enough to do me for now. Of course, I've typed this list on a MacBook Pro (which often displays the wheel of death). If Apple put the consumer ahead of the brand, many of these long-standing issues would have been resolved years ago. But would the brand be better for it?

Tourism Australia

It started with a teaser that looked like an official film trailer. As the camera pans along what appears to be a gorge in outback Australia, the words, ‘The Son of an Australian Legend Returns Home' are projected on the screen. Standing above the gorge on a red rock is a man dressed like the original Crocodile Dundee. He says ‘Good-day, losers' in an American accent. There's Chris Hemsworth, Margot Robbie, Hugh Jackman, Liam Hemsworth, Isla Fisher, Russell Crowe, Ruby Rose and Jessica Mauboy. The spot finished with ‘Summer 2018 #dundeemovie' on the screen. Social media erupted: was Crocodile Dundee 4 coming to the big screen? If not, then what? The question was answered on 5 February 2018 during the world's most-watched ad break: the Super Bowl. The teaser was a fake and an ad for Tourism Australia. It screened in front of a potential 110 million viewers, making it the boldest campaign ever seen in the tourism sector and winning numerous advertising awards. The campaign has been extremely successful, with bookings up by 13 per cent and intention to book up 83 per cent.⁴

The campaign didn't end there. My agency created a sequel to the ad with the express aim of converting interest in visiting Australia to buying a plane ticket. The sequel, ‘Come Visit the Set of Dundee', was born. It starred the lesser-known, ‘original' Hemsworth, Luke Hemsworth, treating Australia as one big studio back lot. As he drives a golf buggy down a red dirt road, the jewels in Australia's tourism crown are on display, from the Barrier Reef, Ningaloo Reef, Sydney Harbour during VIVID and Freycinet in Tassie to the cube building in McLaren Vale, South Australia.⁵

We presented our pitch to then Chief Marketing Officer of Tourism Australia, Lisa Ronson. She estimated the entire campaign would add $860 million to the Australian economy by 2020. I think the campaign also reaffirmed Australia's identity as self-deprecating and casual. We don't take ourselves too seriously and offer light-hearted relief captured in the character of Mick Dundee.

In 2018, Lisa was ranked number one on the CMO50, a list that recognises Australia's innovative and effective marketing leaders. I asked for her general views on research for brands and marketing campaigns and whether she relied on consumer research to help decide on an idea, or improve it. She said she isn't an advocate of creativity by committee. If you are clear about the problem to solve, the outcome and what the brand stands for, these filters help to determine the best idea.

How did Lisa know she was backing the best idea in our Dundee pitch? She told me the idea was simple, smart and compelling. Luke Hemsworth's ability to have a joke at his own expense sums up Australians, and she liked the idea of extending on the Super Bowl ad by turning Australia into a movie set. Research helps if you have a problem to solve. A great creative idea isn't a problem that needs to be solved.

This is where getting the foundations right is critical; otherwise you will be ‘spraying and praying' with your brand. The foundations are your vision, your purpose — why you get out of bed every day beyond making money — your brand personality and values. Also having a very clear understanding of what aspects of your brand need work to ladder up to your vision and purpose. This provides a good lens for what you do as well as what you don't. The key is in recognising and backing brave, creative ideas that will really shift the dial in brand fame, consumer engagement and drive business outcomes. As a marketing community, we have become far too safe and don't back ourselves. To link to the previous question, market research often compounds this problem.

I agree with her about strong foundations, including a clear understanding of what your brand stands for and where it is heading. Once these are in place, you can then unleash creativity.

A bit of romance

In a world that's chasing efficiency (and creating homogenisation), I'm observing a counter-trend in some corporate offices. There's a yearning for the irrational, the beautiful and, dare I say, romantic. A friend and PR guru Catherine King formed an agency with a bunch of collective misfits called The Romantics. She believes smart divergent people need to come together to solve problems. But problems are not addressed in a board room or a workshop environment. Cath takes them into a romantic setting and explores the romance of the problem.

Cath would get on well with Tim Leberecht, author of The Business Romantic. Tim believes the world has chased efficiency for long enough. Thanks to persuasive technologies, big data and a desire to measure and quantify everything, we've almost eaten the final crumbs of the efficiency pie. We can keep trying to dial up the efficiency but, just like promising lower prices, it's ultimately a promise to nowhere. As Tim says,

We can no longer afford efficiency. To be fair, efficiency once served us well. It was the engine behind the industrial age, and as we have been shifting to the post-industrial one, it has helped us squeeze the last drop out of a tightening system. But with top-line growth becoming paramount for most businesses, it is time to acknowledge that efficiency alone is producing diminishing returns.⁶

Tim explains why efficiency is potentially so dangerous. In my world, efficiency is based on consumer understanding — of understanding consumers at every turn and giving them precisely what they need. If we make things as easy as possible for consumers to get what they want, we end up in a 100 per cent efficiency wasteland. As depicted in WALL-E, everyone is overweight, wearing the same clothes and getting around in personal jet-propelled mini-cars. They never need to move and everything is brought to them. A perfectly efficient future ends up disabling humans and hindering their creativity. According to IKEA, Wall-E, and Cath and Tim, efficiency is the end of the line.

It's a mistake to chase efficiency. Efficiency means call centre staff are rewarded for dismissing problems as quickly as possible. It creates chatbots so even fewer staff are needed. Chatbots are not the answer. Our client 13cabs represents the majority of the taxi industry in Australia. One of its competitive advantages is a call centre for those who don't want to book a cab through an app. Some callers are elderly, confused or have special needs. The staff who answer these calls have the time to assist them. In fact, some of the ads we created for 13cabs featured actual calls to the company, the content is that powerful.

Efficiency doesn't tolerate waste or fantastic ideas, and is the enemy of creativity and innovation. Efficiency optimises what already exists. In focusing on what already is and improving on it, you miss opportunities to create something better. It's unfortunate that in a world where everything can be measured, we focus on the measurable. We can measure our five senses, and we can deliver on this. However, it's still tough to measure what happens in our hearts and our feelings. And this brings me to romance. Romance is the enemy of efficiency.

Romance, almost by implication, means chasing the irrational. Romance is the relaunch of a Volkswagen Beetle with a flower on the dashboard. Romance is Google changing their logo every once in a while with a new Google Doodle. Heck, romance is IKEA recognising you enjoy Saturday morning even more if you build a bookcase yourself rather than have it delivered ready made. If you asked a consumer if they were more inclined to buy a car because it had a pink flower on the dashboard, the answer would be no. If you asked a consumer if they would pay more for a bookcase they had to assemble themselves, the answer would be no. Focusing on the consumer leads to efficiency. Concentrating on your brand offers the scope for innovation, expression and the ability to surprise and delight.

Art Series Hotels

Quentin Tarantino has Uma Thurman; I have Art Series Hotels. I've worked with them for years and they are a favourite client because they know their brand so well. With limited budgets but great brand understanding, we've been inspired to create big ideas with mainly outrageous success. In fact the Art Series Hotel chain was sold last year for squillions, and one of the reasons the sales price was so high was how Art Series Hotels advertised; they know their brand. As their agency partner, I just delivered on a very clearly articulated central organising thought of ‘art-inspired experiences' that met the tone of the brand. The ideas we've done together include:

• Steal Banksy. This was the first idea and involved inviting people to ‘stay the night and steal the art'. In the hotel, a piece of Banksy art was hung on the wall. If a guest was able to steal it, they could keep it. If they were caught, the art was returned to the wall. It was eventually stolen in a well-constructed heist. The campaign won a gold Lion at Cannes and a Gold Effie for effectiveness.
• Overstay checkout. Overstay, you're welcome. Every morning guests could ring up and see if anyone had booked the room that night. If not, they could keep staying there for free. In fact, they could stay for free until the room was next booked. The guests felt so good about the deal, they spent money at the hotel's bar and restaurant. It's been so successful, the hotel has run the promotion for several years. The idea won a Silver Lion, a Gold Effie, WARC World of Innovation Award and Retail Innovation of the Year.
• Which Warhol. We would hang a real Warhol with a number of fakes. If someone guessed the right one, they could keep it. (We had bad legal advice here and had to terminate the promotion with an apology.)
• Reverse reviews. Instead of the guests reviewing the hotel, the hotel reviewed every guest. This idea was bold and audacious and won several awards and earned media from around the world.
• Art in micro. We conducted a micro art exhibition and invited people to stay the night and find the art. The campaign took place with plenty of earned media.

Here's the press release from the Art in Micro launch, the latest (although I'm sure not the last) idea.

Along came ALDI

Occasionally (well, quite often) I see an ad campaign that I wish our agency had devised and implemented. One example is the great and continuing work for the discount supermarket chain ALDI. The first time you walk into an ALDI store it's somewhat disorientating. You might find a lawnmower placed next to a container of biscuits by brands you don't know but that look familiar to the ones you usually buy. This is a key component of ALDI's success — in-house brands that look like existing brands but at discount prices. As the company says,

From the beginning, ALDI stood out from the rest of the supermarket pack. . . . Our products were unfamiliar to the Australian public. And customers were asked to pack their own bags. It didn't take long for Aussies to recognise these differences for what they were — a commitment to saving shoppers money.⁷

But not everyone was convinced. And in 2015, ALDI Australia ran the ‘Supermarket Switch Challenge' (created by BMF Advertising) that aimed to convert so-called ALDI sceptics. These were shoppers turned off by the store's quirkiness and unfamiliarity. ‘It's just so random,' says one guy. The campaign recruited fans of the store to convince their sceptical friends to make the switch. The sceptics discovered that even though there were brands they didn't recognise, some of their favourites, such as Vegemite, were on the shelves and at lower prices. One woman says of the store layout, ‘It's bigger than I expected'. As a result of the campaign, 661 000 new households started shopping at ALDI.

Hear the brand

As these stories show, it doesn't matter what type of business it is; any organisation can understand and live by its brand. In my experience, the commercial sector generally defines its brand in a clear and readily understood way. That's not to say there aren't great examples in the not-for-profit and charity sector as well. You can be brilliant at hearing, defining and disseminating what a brand stands for regardless of the offering.

Hearing what the brand means and ensuring it's clearly communicated is perhaps Marketing 101, but it's become more difficult to hear the brand because of the noise created by consumer research and behavioural data. As these examples have shown, there are many great brands that do a brilliant job of it.