It Was All Yellow: Al- Futtaim IKEA's latest Campaign Turns Customers into Co-workers'

Dubai, UAE on 02 March 2022: Many of us have experienced it — you wear the same colour shirt as a retail worker in-store and inevitably, a customer approaches you with myriad questions about a product. This encounter was happening frequently at the IKEA, stores in UAE to customers who didn’t think twice about wearing yellow — the colour IKEA co-workers proudly wear.  

To turn this awkward encounter into a positive, Al- Futtaim IKEA’s creative partner, Memac Ogilvy, devised and launched a campaign to turn yellow-shirted customers into an asset during the Swedish retail leader’s busiest sale season yet. During sale periods, the store’s s footfall can increase by over 600 per cent. While that’s great for business, it puts added pressure on its co-worker numbers, which remains the same.  

Enter the Al- Futtaim IKEA and Memac Ogilvy Co-worker for the Day campaign, a campaign that gave customers a fun opportunity to become a co-workers for a few hours, as long as they were already wearing a yellow shirt. Their secret weapon was of course the IKEA app. Armed with the app, they would have the same knowledge of IKEA’s extensive home furnishing range as an actual co-worker. 

Using the recently enhanced app, ‘co-workers’ on 29 January 2022 could guide other customers to the best deals around the store. Whatever another customer needed, the app had all the answers. In exchange for their not-so-hard work, Al-Futtaim IKEA rewarded the ‘co-workers of the day’ with a gift voucher that could be redeemed towards their next purchase.  

On the campaign, Till Hohmann, Chief Creative Director MENA at Memac Ogilvy, said: “This campaign is a wonderful example of the old communications adage of ‘show not tell’. The team applied Ogilvy’s philosophy of borderless creativity to address a business challenge in a way that brought the customer and brand closer together, while emphasising the retailer’s belief in empowering people and promoting togetherness. These are at the heart of the brand’s culture.” 

The IKEA app allows customers to browse the complete range, add products to a shopping cart and complete their purchase journey with a secured and seamless checkout. The newly improved visual scan allows customers to search for products by simply clicking a picture. Additionally, they can scan barcodes, and article numbers to get product information; check stock availability; and sign-up to become an IKEA Family member — which gives access to discounted member prices on selected IKEA products. The app is available in English and Arabic. 

Through the promotion, Memac Ogilvy and IKEA showed the UAE community why downloading the IKEA app is essential for all their needs when shopping with the Swedish retail.