How Åkestam Holst got people to fall in love with ‘unlikeable’ IKEA products

June 13, 2018 11:15

Award-winning international creative agency Åkestam Holst made people care about, and fall in love with, seemingly-banal IKEA products by convincing consumers beds, chairs and even forks had emotional value, the executive creative director Magnus Jakobsson has told the audience at Mumbrella360.

Jakobsson also revealed that lots of its acclaimed work has been done by employees at the agency who aren’t even assigned to the IKEA account.

Jakobsson said working with IKEA wasn’t always easy, but was worth it

The agency has done award-winning work for IKEA, including ‘The Pee Ad’ print ad which doubled as a pregnancy test and ‘Retail Therapy’ which renamed IKEA’s products as common Google searches about relationship problems in Sweden, which Jakobsson noting it wasn’t an easy path.

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Abigail Dawson

Abigail Dawson was Mumbrella's senior content journalist covering event content. She left Mumbrella to move into an agency role in 2020.