For fans of the crafty, Swedish furniture designer, every new catalog is like a sweet treat we just can’t wait to savor. Maybe it’s because Ikea’s designs are functional, affordable, yet sleek and stylish too. Maybe it’s because they can complement a pricier piece of furniture beautifully. Or maybe it’s the fact that they design the type of furniture a real home full of family, children, and pets should have. We love visiting the store to admire the tastefully put-together set-ups and to indulge in the Swedish meatballs. Whatever the reason you may be a fan, you’ll be excited to see the new 2012 catalog we are covering here. We have embedded a pdf of the catalog below. You can also download it from here. If you just prefer a quick look through, keep scrolling. We are sure many of you can admire and relate to the quote on their cover-page – “A home doesn’t need to be big, just smart.” And IKEA is a master at maximizing the use of space while still providing functionality and style.
The cover-page is what IKEA’s philosophy stands for, and what the contents of the new catalog will maintain. Their catalogs feature spaces that actually look like they are inhabited by humans. The living room designs are comfortable, vibrant and stylish. With this white living room, we see the IKEA space-saving philosophy come into play again, with extensive shelving along the walls, as well as plenty of storage bins, and hanging lights. I personally enjoy the relieving pop of color the red and white polka dot couch provides. This all-white living room is a cozy, comfy charmer with its white fuzzy rug, and laid-back white furniture. It manages to be classic and rustic at the same time and the couches are all squarely placed around the coffee table, for organization and aesthetic purposes. This vibrantly furnished living room is the perfect play area combined with relaxation area, because of the exceptional organization of the room and the fun, yet relaxing color scheme.
We love this room. Watch how the room is split into different’zones’. One zone is the reading/lounge zone characterized by the white lounge chair in the window alcove. The ottomans and couch and chair outline the sitting area. There is also a separate dining room in this relatively small living area. IKEA is amazing for the city-dweller, particularly, because of their make-use-of-every-inch style. This design is reminiscent of a tiny, New York City studio where space is minimal and challenging. The extensive use of shelves, storage bins, and smaller appliances make this space not only livable, but comfortable and functional as well. The different IKEA bedroom designs seem to respond to the varying challenges posed by varying types of bedrooms–from the country bedroom to the city bedroom with no closets, to the attic bedroom, they have a solution for everyone. Here, we see a bedroom with no real closets, so IKEA proposes you buy a lot of their plastic storage shelves, and simply hang a curtain in front of them when you need to cover your “closet” up.
They even suggest placing the desk along with the shelves, and using as many storage bins as possible. This white, country-style bedroom also works with no real closet, because the IKEA white closet dressers and regular dresser can hold your stuff for you. This idea will perhaps appeal to the fashion maven, with no real closet. You can use your clothes as decoration and accordingly, hang them on bars around your bedroom. A red skinny table serves as a desk or breakfast tray and is easily placed above the bed. For those of us with a bedroom and living room in one, IKEA shows us how to separate using benches and dividing furniture, all in a similar color scheme as the entire room. IKEA seems to believe everyone should have a large kitchen, despite the space of the remaining rooms. And while we wholeheartedly agree, we are happy they are offering at least one take on their design for a much smaller, “city-size” kitchen below. As small as it is, this kitchen is absolutely adorable!
Ikea suggests the use of many, many hanging shelves and racks for your kitchenwares, smaller tables that do not sacrifice the use of nice wood finishes, and brightening up the space with pops of color. This space meshes the kitchen with the dining area, yet with the extensive use of shelves, racks, and cupboards and simple design, the space does not look cluttered, but streamlined and semi-spacious. It also works to provide more flow and connection between the two spaces. As for workspaces, IKEA covers them too, both large and tiny, vibrant and dark. This one has to be our favorite, because it is absolutely tiny yet adorable. If you look closely, you will see that they have made use of a small wall between two closet spaces, and simply hung curtains to frame or cover it when necessary. A tiny work desk, tiny laptop decorate the space along with a wall-shelf and board that holds items. It is made its own space with the use of an eye-catching black and white wallpaper print on the wall.
This particularly caught our eye. A workspace inside the kitchen, all made possible by a large storage closet, that can be used to store dishes and glasswares, but that also has a fold-out desk a laptop can easily be placed on! Adding a desk that is the same height as the countertop before it, in a small corner of the room, saves space but also looks much nicer. IKEA is making me seriously consider moving into a smaller apartment, in order to make it look as adorable and charming as they do! Here are their takes on kids’ rooms, especially those that are shared or baby rooms that are smaller than the norm. Check out how the wallpapers split at the middle of the room. The wall-attached lights also save room and easily provide nightly story-telling sessions. This room doubles as a play and sleep area. If you enjoyed this check out our post on other IKEA Catalogs: Previous IKEA Catalogs Auto News Health News Telecom News Energy News IT News Real Estate News Brand EquityTechnology News CFO News IT Security News
How IKEA uses social media to emerge a marketing success By Bhavya MisraETRetail BureauNew DelhiAdvertising and marketing constitutes a substantial share of a retailer's annual expenditure and TV has been the most dominant mode of campaigning until internet marketing started chipping the limelight away.IKEA, the world's largest home furnishing retailer, is one of the early adopters of the digital mode of marketing and has made maximum use of the social media clubbed with massive emphasis on its digital catalogue which forms the core of the retailer's marketing strategy.With 345 operational stores across the world (as of year 2013), IKEA's digital marketing strategy remains almost uniform - extensive use of social media with separate country pages for respective markets and an ever increasing stress on digital catalogue applications which can be downloaded on app stores such as Google Play and the Apple store."The 2013 edition of the IKEA catalogue application was downloaded almost 10 million times!"
Ever since 1951 the IKEA catalogue has been a source of inspiration, a reference for home furnishing knowledge; even as it (the catalogue) continues to evolve and improve, making the most of the latest possibilities," it says.The latest catalogue application that IKEA launched in 2014 has 59 editions.IKEA's presence on social mediaFacebook: There are a minimum of 1.5 lakh fans on each of IKEA's country pages. The USA page has the highest following measuring about 3,411,985. The retailer's social teams pose questions, links to photo albums, and post YouTube clips to increase engagement.Twitter: IKEA has separate twitter feeds for all its country-specific twitter pages. The US page alone has 2, 22,000 followers while IKEA Canada page has 6, 66,000 followers. Ikea makes these pages engaging by fascinating its followers to indulge in campaigns such as celebrating the 'Bring your Own Friends Day (BYOF).Pinterest: This is an obvious choice for a retailer which deals in home furnishings, as this claims to be the official 'visual discovery tool'.
Making best use of Pinterest, IKEA visually presents its merchandise to local markets in the UK, USA, Canada and other countries.Google +: IKEA's USA page entered Google + only recently (January, 2014) and has the lowest following out of all of its pages. The retailer has apparently not been able to make much use of this platform even as the main page was launched in December 2011.Outdoor Campaigns: While promotion of its catalogue through online mode constitutes almost 70 percent of its annual marketing spend, IKEA also makes judicious use of OOH (Out of home) by creating high engagement outdoor campaigns - one being in Paris (around the Gare Saint Lazare) where the furnishing retailer, based on the fact that half of the French people live in places with bathrooms smaller than 8sqm, installed a life sized bathroom on one side and a laundry room on the other. To add interaction to the 3D panel, IKEA deployed two actors (at peak commuting times in the morning and the evening) to stand on the panel pretending to perform everyday bathroom activities such as showering or shaving.
Indoor Garden, London: Besides outdoor bathrooms in Paris, IKEA also created indoor gardens in London. IKEA with the help of the JCCaux (world's largest outdoor advertising agency) took to the indoor environments of Waterloo and Liverpool rail stations in the UK, to show to commuters that they could 'make more of their outdoor spaces' - a.k.a their gardens. A pop-up shop invited commuters to sit down and observe the wide range of outdoor solutions available in the IKEA store that could help them transform their outdoor space.Billboard-fitted wardrobes, Vienna: IKEA advertised the advantages of its particular flexible wardrobe by "dressing" a Gewista (Austria's leading company in the field of outdoor advertising) billboard with a PAX door that passers-by could slide open in order to discover IKEA's solutions that help fit anything into a wardrobe. Storage units in Shanghai Metro station, China: In Shanghai, IKEA took to the busy metro station to advertise their stackable filing cabinets.
The metro columns were fully swathed to take the shape of the boxes. Price tags were also part of the wrap, making each column look like an actual product display.During initial stages of entry into new markets, IKEA has well gone through a phase of trial-and-error learning before it could hit the bull's eye. For instance, when the retailer entered USA, it had to transform its traditional moose and advertising slogan, "IKEA: The impossible furniture store from Sweden," to "It's a big country. Someone's got to furnish it," because the former was projecting a wrong image of the retailer. Quite naturally, India is another unique market that is waiting in the wings for the home furnishing retailer to explore. What remains to be seen is how IKEA would adapt to the Indian market and, will it be able to successfully engage Indian consumers with similar innovative marketing tactics that have established the retailer as a marketing success? ///Trends ›Gold Price / Startups News / Ecommerce News / Starbucks / ITC News / Retailers News / Foodpanda / Zomato / Amazon / PaytmEditor's Picks ›Manpasand Beverages betting big on Indian Railways / Early adopters to usher in non-smartphone-based shopping: Abhijeet Vijayvergia, VP, Capillary Technologies / Wonderchef to employ 1 lakh women across the country / Impact of GST on e-commerce marketplace: Here is all you need to know / Twinkle Khanna to endorse salon hair brand L'Oreal Professionnel for India / Anytime Fitness targets 100 open clubs by 2019 / Starbucks drags