IKEA: Localization success beyond marketing
Even if you don't believe it
From the bottom of my heart mind
Fresh stories from a Spanish Copywriter.
Since I moved to a new apartment few weeks ago, I’ve been visiting (too much) the local IKEA in Valencia.
Fun fact: 8 years ago I worked for a advertising campaign for this brand, while working in an agency. I also played a role as an actor and still have the chair I got as a memory.
IKEA campaigns, at least in Spain, are always on point and use local insights, like our local festivity (Fallas) or some popular traditions. I started reading about it and discover this goes beyond marketing and communication.
When IKEA started to expand his business, they tried to enter into the Japanese market… and they failed. The reasons: Japanese culture didn’t accept they had to build their own furniture and the size of them wasn’t optimal for their apartments.
IKEA learned from these mistakes and made it right in the next expansions: they created bigger furnitures for the U.S. market and for the Indian market, they implement an extra customer support service to help people build up their furnitures.
Finally, in 2006, IKEA tried again in Japan. Now with furnitures that could fit their houses and a service to deliver and build all the products.
Think about it: IKEA had a great product, a great service, a great financial situation, a great communication… in his very specific market. When they tried to expand the brand, those factors were important, but they missed the localization process.
And doing so, they failed.
As I always say, localization goes beyond words and specific strategies. It is a holistic process that impact marketing, operation, customer support and every branch of the brand.
Market-in
Resources to reach your peak level.
💡AI is out there (either if you like it or not), so I try to stay up to date on it. Here one of the articles I read about it lately.
Outside the desk
Where the magic really happens.
🎶 On Saturday I went to a special music festival, with most of the artists performing in Euskera, Catalan and Galego (together with Spanish, the official languages in Spain).
🏺 While reading the productivity book, I finished a novel about the Roman Empire. Is a quite long trilogy, so way to go!
🛒 Apartment update: I have a weekend to build a lot of IKEA’s furniture, include the famous KALAX, BILLY or BESTA. They decided to not localize their names (and keep it in Swedish) and I think it was a good move.
Make it global, baby
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All the best for the rest of your week,
💙 Ricky from Textonality.com 💙