I was going about my daily morning wake routine, which generally starts with a few barely audible groans as I wake up and use gravity to roll out of bed and stumble over to put the kettle on while I rub the sleep out of my eyes and attempt to recollect the evenings dreams. (I should mention that unfortunately, not enough of those dreams involve scantily clad Swedish vixens having pillow fights). After I’ve made my coffee I usually fire up the computer to read my RSS feeds in Google Reader, then see what inane ramblings my friends on the other side of the world have made on the “Zuckerberg Platform of World Domination”…err, I mean Facebook.
This morning one of my mates had a status update about her “managing to assemble some IKEA furniture after several hours” and it got me thinking.
I have to admit, I’ve never EVER had any problems assembling any furniture from IKEA…a.k.a. “the flat-packed warehouse of dreams”! However, I have watched a couple of my ex-girlfriends struggle with the task even though they would all attempt to follow the instructions. As a male, I stick to the “if all else fails, read the instructions” rule that my father passed down to me and no doubt his father passed down to him as well.
Anyways, in my briefing musing, I wondered why IKEA hasn’t taken an online support angle to their products. These days most web applications have a knowledge-base containing videos that are short and engaging. In a world where nobody seems to RTFM and every consumer has a DVD player then why don’t companies like IKEA include a short amateurish DVD of how to assemble their furniture? Media is cheap, HD video cameras are cheap and Sweden is filled with attractive, young, long legged, tanned blondes…so why not hop to it IKEA and make life easier for your consumer?
EDIT: After talking to Lachlan this morning he said to me “Oh, by the way nice post. I can’t believe you wrote DVD though. We should be telling IKEA to make better use of their youtube channel, if this is their real one? http://www.youtube.com/user/Ikea#g/a.
After having a sniff around I found another IKEA channel on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/IKEAFAMILYLIVE and they have a Facebook Page here: http://www.facebook.com/IKEAUSA. Frankly, I’m disappointed with their online presence on social networking sites. So here’s an online strategy the sennza way!
The plan
YouTube – We would film DVD instructional videos for all the furniture items with two hot Swedish blondes which would entertain and inform the blokes about how to assemble furniture. These would go viral on Facebook, Twitter and in emails as all men love to perve and share links of hotties with their mates.
We’d also give the ladies two ripped Swedish dudes assembling the furniture as well to capture their attention. The chances of these videos going viral would be much lower than the hot Swedes because women are generally more subtle and reserved when it comes to that kind of stuff. Although Gen Y and Gen Net females are breaking through this generalisation.
Facebook – We’d build you a custom FBML (Facebook Markup Language) page that would have a monthly special page with click through links to the product pages on the IKEA site. We’d also post new YouTube videos of the Swedes assembling new products on the Facebook wall to show people new products.
In-store – After the hot Swedish chicks and ripped Swedish dudes have gone viral we’d make them embark on a tour of the IKEA stores for instore furniture assembly. Why? Because we all know how much women love IKEA and blokes hate going in the store. If we’ve got two hot chicks in-store to entertain the blokes, they’ll be happy to take their wives and girlfriends to IKEA and whilst they wander around shopping, the blokes can have a good perve and everyone is happy. Also, I know my gay mates all love IKEA already so they’d be even happier to perve on ripped dudes as well and they’d also go on a testosterone fueled spending spree afterwards.
Have a think about that IKEA! sennza can sort you out online!
Pingback: Taking Online Thinking Offline | Mans Page