A woman throws out a red table lamp, and it is left abandoned in the rain. The camera shows the lamp’s view while its former owner enjoys a brand new IKEA lamp indoors. Then a man walks into the frame, turns to the camera and tells us that many of us feel bad for this lamp.
The man was Jonas Fornander, a Swede who had never acted before. Director Spike Jonze wanted someone who looked like an IKEA worker who had walked out of the store and onto the street. The 60-second ad was released on September 15, 2002, made by the agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky as part of IKEA’s “Unboring” campaign, and its message was blunt: the old lamp has no feelings, and the new one is much better.
It worked. IKEA’s sales rose 8 percent while the campaign ran, and the ad won a Film Grand Prix at Cannes Lions, a Grand Clio and gold awards from several other festivals. In 2009, Boards magazine voted it one of the top ten television ads of the decade.
Not everyone liked it. Critic Rob Walker noted that the campaign could link IKEA to landfill and to following trends. In 2018 IKEA answered with a sequel, “Lamp 2,” with the same actor, this time promoting reuse and recycling.
Leave a Reply