Extracting Ikea's Creative Narrative

The assignment content is a case study analysis of IKEA's campaign featuring a 60-second film that showcases the comfort and coziness of their beds. The analysis focuses on three key aspects: creativity, narration, and discourse. It highlights how IKEA uses creative approaches to establish new relationships between previously unrelated things, and how the use of narrative structures and music attracts viewers to participate in the story.

Extract 1. Ikea
Take a look at this extract from one of last year’s students.
Good points are the way in which sources /references are integrated into the text to support points and the
structure (moving from creativity, to narrative, discourse and on the music). Each section is well supported
with academic sources.
1. Analysis of Ikea campaign
A cinematic new spot from Ikea, the 60 second film features a woman waking in a bed high in the sky. She
dangles her feet for a second before jumping into the clouds and plummeting to earth, tumbling past various
beds and into the heart of a city. As the woman gets closer to the ground, the ad shows the London skyline,
where she eventually lands in her own Ikea- furnished bedroom alongside her partner and dog, who are fast
asleep.
 Creativity
Set to a reading from Act 4 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s the Tempest, voiced by Prunella Scales. Like all dreams,
this character’s concludes in reality, with Ikea reminding us, ‘There’s no bed like home’’. Based on Rhodes
(1961) typology of creativity study, Ikea practises the ‘Mystical approach’ where creativity was believed to be
inspired by the ‘muse’ of classical poets. According to Martindale (1999), the use of creativity in advertisement
establishes new and meaningful relationships between previously unrelated things in a manner into relevant,
believable and presents the product in a fresh new light. Based on DeLorme (1999) study, Ikea advertising
creativity therefore is an original and imaginative within a goal- directed and problem- solving context in the
concepts of ‘relevance’ and ‘appropriateness’. Mumford and Gustafson, (1998) also note that the goal
attainment and problem solving are key features in creative advertising.
 The use of narration
Ikea engages the narrator here by addressing her directly by means of the pronoun ‘you’ in a more informal/
intimate tone, ideologically from a critical discourse analysis perspective.
‘Our revels now are ended [1]. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into
thin air. [2] And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the
solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve [3]. And like this insubstantial
pageant faded, leave not a rack behind [4]. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is
rounded with a sleep [5].
Based on Labov’s (1972)’s types of narrative structure, it is classified as
[1] Abstract [2] Orientation [3] & [4]: Complicating Action [5] Result

Ikea beds advert, created by agency Mother, captures the idea that people spend all year dreaming about
relaxing on their summer holiday when, in fact, the best night’s sleep is had in their own bed. This ad focuses
on how the perfect bed can help us to start the day the right away. It is a good looking and stunning advert
that not only makes us want to get a full night’s sleep, but will no doubt have those expecting buying a new
bed or thinking about a visit to Ikea at the weekend.
 Discourse and Narration
Ikea applies discourse, which is the narrating process, and puts story events which are made up of camera
shots in a narrative progression collected into sequences from emotional point of view. The narrator
establishes a link between the audience and the advertising agency; inviting the viewers to involve in the
ongoing progress of the story. Linking back to Kozloff (1992)’s narrative study, the viewer is associated with
point of view shots of characters, where the performers make it more evident that they convey their actions to
the audiences through narrative structures in this advertisement. Therefore, the narrating discourse attracts
an individual viewer to constitute himself or herself as part of an audience (‘join us’) explicitly.
 Music and visual