2018 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Arabic Reassembled was an in-store activation inspired by IKEA's iconic style of assembling furniture from parts, encouraging kids to assemble words from letters. Targeted to an audience of young families, it kicked off with the creation of limited edition wooden letters packaged in IKEA boxes, complete with assembly instruction manuals. Hundreds of children interacted with the products, and experienced the joy of reconnecting with Arabic in a fun environment. The event reflected IKEA's brand spirit while educating kids through play.

Creative Execution

The small-scale activation was promoted all around the IKEA store and implemented in the kids' section on Arab Literacy Day. The kids were able to interact with the letters, either with the help of their parents or IKEA staff, and learn to assemble simple everyday Arabic words from the letters they were provided with.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

With over 300 participants in IKEA stores, Arabic Reassembled is a small-scale initiative with a budget of <USD 15,000 and a successful part of the brand's Corporate Social Responsibility efforts, helping raise awareness about the Arabic language and reconnecting people to it. In addition to the in-store participation, the activation had 86,540 social impressions, 2,005,760 PR impressions and a PR value of $147,000. After seeing the success the activation has achieved thus far, another social media rollout is planned in the coming weeks.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

As an in-store activation designed to address a social issue - that people are slowly losing the importance of the Arabic language, the work embraced IKEA's reputation as a brand that cares. The activation also stayed true to the brand's culture of user-friendly design and assembly, offering customers a new avenue for interaction and education through the medium of play.

Our approach was to capitalize on one of IKEA's core equities: Their expertise in assembly, and extend it to an unexpected domain: Language. This allowed us to directly engage our young audience visiting the IKEA store with their parents in a fun learning activity, the IKEA way. It also allowed us to tap into children's love for assembly, which starts from a very young age. Even as toddlers, they love toys such as building blocks and puzzles, and copying what their parents do - just like parents assemble furniture, children got to assemble Arabic letters into words.