Comprehensive Reflective Report on IKEA's Advertising Strategies

This reflective report provides an analysis of IKEA's advertising and marketing strategies, covering aspects such as brand background, goals, target audience, problems faced, customer insights, unique selling proposition (USP), and advertising campaign elements. It delves into IKEA's objective to offer affordable, functional, and well-designed furniture while scaling up operations through effective communication. The report highlights IKEA's focus on the 20-34 age group, its challenges in generating awareness in new markets, and its reliance on social media and billboards. It further examines IKEA's customer loyalty, affordable pricing, and the 'Do It Yourself' (D.I.Y) culture promoted through ready-to-assemble furniture. The report also discusses the student's learning process, including observations about marketing, advertising, and promotion, as well as insights gained from a study group discussion on IKEA's advertising strategy. The reflection emphasizes the importance of impactful marketing communication, a blend of traditional and digital advertising, and continuous improvement in advertising skills.

Reflective
Report
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Table of Contents
Creative brief...................................................................................................................................3
Research...........................................................................................................................................6
Reflective Report.............................................................................................................................8
How did you feel about the process?......................................................................................8
What did you notice when doing the assignment?.................................................................9
How was the discussion in your study group?.......................................................................9
What did you learn?................................................................................................................9
Would you do anything different next time?........................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
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Creative brief
Client name: IKEA
Date: XYZ
Brand background and overview (to include competitors and current situation):
IKEA was founded in Sweden and is currently headquartered in Dutch which deals in
designing and selling of ready to assemble furniture, home appliances, kitchen appliances
and other home services goods. They have been one of the world’s largest furniture retailer
since the year 2020. IKEA has created a unified lifestyle where they emphasize on home
furnishing and low cost furniture. Walmart is one of their major competitors as they deal in
different qualities of furniture across the world (Voorveld and et. al., 2018).
What are the goals and objectives and the reason for advertising?
IKEA offers a wide range of products in the market across several countries in world. They
have a very unique selling proposition of the brand. The company has made a good image
in the market with their strategies and techniques.
Goals- The goal of the company is to offer services and products that will make easier for
people to bring furniture at home without any inconvenience. Their goal is to remove all
single use plastic products from the product range of IKEA by the year 2030.
Objective- The medium to long term objective of the company is to offer customers with a
wide range of furnishing items that have good functions and design with excellent
durability and quality. They offer a wide range of products so that majority of people across
the world can afford it (Martins and et. al., 2019).
Reason for advertising- IKEA is looking to scale up their operations and therefore they are
looking to enhance their advertising campaign so that they can well communicate with the
customers.
Who is the target audience?
The target audience of consumer is people who fall in the age bracket of 20 and 34, they
majorly target this age group as these people are majorly into office and home designing.
They offer a wide range of quality products which can be afforded by a decent earning
family. On the demographic basis their target market varies between men and women based
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on the designing of office and home.
What is the problem?
IKEA is majorly facing problems in generating sense of awareness in the new countries
where they have not expanded their operations currently. The advertising model of IKEA
majorly revolves around the social media campaigns and billboards (Van den Broeck,
Zarouali and Poels, 2019). Due to this sometimes the company faces issues in targeting the
exact audience as billboards are based on the geographical concept. They face problems in
explaining their business model where they provide ready to assemble furniture where the
customers are required to assemble the furniture on their own.
What is the customer insight?
The customers of IKEA are proven to be loyal as they have chosen IKEA brand over the
other competitors in the market several times. This shows that the company has good
customer retention rate. They offer affordable range of furniture as compared to other
competitors in this industry. The customer’s insights on the product of IKEA is good as
they provide good quality of material in their furnishing sector.
What is the USP (Unique Selling Proposition)?
Unique Selling Proposition of IKEA is their new technique of selling furnishing products in
the market. They promote D.I.Y that is Do It Yourself Culture where they provide the
customers with ready to assemble furniture and the assembling part is easy which can be
done by any person (Verhoef and et. al., 2021). They also provide a guide which explains
the way in which the furniture can be assembled.
Why should people believe it? What are the proof points?
IKEA has been in the furniture industry for decades, they have enhanced their quality of
products over the year which proves that they supply the best furniture in industry. Their
major strength is low prices along with good quality where they provide a huge product
range in furniture. The proof point of the company is their increasing revenue over the
years, the company has grown to several folds since its inception. Customer retention is
another point which proves that they provide good quality of products. This proofs that the
company has good product range and they can sustain in the environment for a longer
period of time.
What do we want people to think, feel and do (as a result of seeing the advertising)?
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IKEA is known for their creative set of advertising which they display on social media
platforms and bill boards. With creative advertising the company is looking to attract more
and more customers in their offline stores as well as online websites. Through advertising
the company will display the quality and diversified product range that they offer to
customers.
Tone of voice:
IKEA advertises and communicate with the customers in a subtle and positive manner so
that the organisation can attract more and more customers through its advertising campaign
and can also maintain their brand image (Rasulev and et. al., 2020).
Mandatories:
The mandatory part of the advertising process is to offer customers with creative
advertisement so that the organisation can attract more customers on the basis of value and
products that they are offering to the customers.
Media considerations:
IKEA is looking to consider several media channels to promote their brand and products.
They will advertise and promote their products on different social media platforms and
billboards.
Timings:
The timings of advertisement would change according to ad structure of the advertisement
company.
Budget:
2022 (£) 2023 (£)
Display Ads £20000 £18000
Search Ads £30000 £25000
Traditional £27000 £26000
Brand publishing £30000 £27000
Total £107000 £96000
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Research
Charts and graph to support the above content on IKEA.
Figure 1:Sales share of INGKA Holdings B.V. (IKEA) in 2020, by region
Interpretation- From the above pie chart it can be interpreted that the majority of Sales in IKEA
is derived from Europe which constitutes to around 72%. The other two regions that is Asia and
America constitutes to around 27%.
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Figure 2: Retail sales share of IKEA worldwide in fiscal year 2019, by product category
Interpretation- This chart shows the product line which generates revenue for the company, it
depicts the retail sales share of IKEA worldwide in the year 2019.
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Figure 3: Leading selling countries of IKEA products in 2020
Reflective Report
How did you feel about the process?
The process of learning was very beneficial for me as I learned the ways in which
organisation promote and advertise their product and services. During this process I learnt the
ways in which IKEA operates and further markets their product in the market. I also learnt the
areas in which the organisations focus in order to well communicate the customers across the
globe. I learnt several things about IKEA and the requirement of advertising products in the
company. IKEA has several types of goals and objectives on which the advertising and
promotion activities of the company are dependent. I learnt the factor on which the company
determines the target audience and further uses strategies in order to communicate and place
their product in front of target customers (Bátorfy and Urbán, 2020). I understood the problem
that the company is currently facing in terms of advertising and promoting products in front of
customers. Unique selling proposition is another aspect on which the promotional and
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advertising aspect of the company depend. I learnt that IKEA follows the social media channels
and traditional approaches in promoting their products so that the values and information can be
well communicated to the customers.
What did you notice when doing the assignment?
I noticed that Marketing, advertising and promotion are major areas on which the business
ideas are dependent. The business must evaluate the problems that they are currently facing in
promotion of the products, further the company should come up with solution so that the
business grows in terms of promotional aspects. I learnt that IKEA is one of the major furniture
retail company in several countries and their major competitor is Walmart. I noticed that the
company applies several creative ideas in their advertising and promotional campaigns so that
the customers can well receive the brand and their products. I noticed that there are several
merits and demerits of advertising structure that the company follows and therefore the business
must select best advertising and promotional campaign in order to well communicate with the
employee.
How was the discussion in your study group?
In the study group there was the group discussions on the advertising strategy of the IKEA.
The whole experience of the discussion in the study group was full of learning as I have gained
huge knowledge regarding the advertising and marketing strategy used by the multinational
organisations to build their globally. The discussion was very interesting as it involved the fun
activity in which all the group members were asked to develop one-one advertising campaign for
the IKEA. In the study group discussion there was time when there was conflict of ideas but that
was very learning part as while resolving those issues new ideas and concepts where discussed
regarding the advertising strategy of IKEA. The whole idea of discussion on the advertising
campaign of the IKEA was also useful to make the creative brief more informational. Thus, the
group discussion was useful for the other members as well as all were learning new concepts and
the expertise of every member was helpful in making the discussion more meaningful and
worthy.
What did you learn?
I learnt that advertising and promotion are major areas on which the company’s growth is
dependent. I extensively researched about the topic and studied so that I can learn about the areas
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in advertising. There are several ways in which the organisation can advertise their product in the
market. Promotion can be done through different ways that are advertising the products on social
media platforms and the billboards. I learnt that marketing communication must be impactful as
it determines the traffic of customers on the websites as well as the stores (Anderson, 2019). The
concept of basic advertising through traditional approaches was another area in which I learnt
that the marketing team should also focus. Though, digitalisation is on peak but there are still
some customers who gets attracted through traditional approach of advertising. Therefore, the
organisation must apply a mixture of advertising approaches in the business so that they can
attract all types of customers in the business.
Would you do anything different next time?
I would specifically improve my skills and the learning techniques so that the next time I
can well understand the concept of advertising and promotion that is applied in the companies. I
would further learn the approaches through which the businesses can enhance their advertising
strategies so that they can well connect with the target audience. The next time I would apply my
learnt skills that I have gained in session one so that I can understand the tactics and mind-set
that goes behind the advertising and promotion of products in market. IKEA is one of the brand
that has gained an immense image over the years and they continue to enhance their advertising
strategies by applying creativity and marketing skills in the business conduct.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Anderson, J., 2019. In search of reflection-in-action: an exploratory study of the interactive
reflection of four experienced teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 86, p.102879.
Bátorfy, A. and Urbán, Á., 2020. State advertising as an instrument of transformation of the
media market in Hungary. East European Politics, 36(1), pp.44-65.
Baykal, G.E. and et. al., 2021. What FabLearn talks about when talking about reflection-A
systematic literature review. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction,
p.100256.
Martins, J. and et. al., 2019. How smartphone advertising influences consumers' purchase
intention. Journal of Business Research, 94, pp.378-387.
Rasulev, A. and et. al., 2020. The role of islamic banking in the transformation of international
corporations as a reflection of modern globalization and migration. Архив научных
исследований, (20).
Van den Broeck, E., Zarouali, B. and Poels, K., 2019. Chatbot advertising effectiveness: When
does the message get through?. Computers in Human Behavior, 98, pp.150-157.
Verhoef, P.C. and et. al., 2021. Digital transformation: A multidisciplinary reflection and
research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 122, pp.889-901.
Voorveld, H.A. and et. al., 2018. Engagement with social media and social media advertising:
The differentiating role of platform type. Journal of advertising, 47(1), pp.38-54.
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