Writing

Scenario: a country leader needs to tell co-workers that a planned change is being delayed by a quarter. The first draft arrived as corporate language. Here is that draft, and what I would send instead.

The thinking: Bad news gets worse the longer the sentence. The real version gives the decision in the first line, the reason in the second paragraph, the practical consequence third, and the apology unhedged. It also says I rather than we where a person is actually deciding something.

Built for what actually happens.

The insight

We shop for the home we picture. We live in the home we get. Nobody photographs the Tuesday version, but the Tuesday version is the one the furniture has to survive. IKEA has always been better at the real home than the imagined one. This platform says so out loud.

Execution A — Out of home and print, four headlines

The thinking: Two-line structure throughout: line one is the promise everyone makes, line two is the truth only we are relaxed enough to admit. The joke is never at the customer’s expense. It is at the expense of the brochure.

Execution B — Film, 20 seconds

Visual and voice over. One continuous shot of the same living room, morning to night.

We photograph this room empty.Then you put a life in it.A dog on the sofa. A puzzle nobody finishes. Someone eating standing up because they are late.We did not design it for the photograph.IKEA. Built for what actually happens.

The thinking: The film admits the artifice of its own category in the first line, which buys permission for everything after it. Short sentences, present tense, no adjectives doing sales work.

Execution C — Paid social, six short variants for 1:1 and 9:16

• —The rug was beige for eleven days.
• —A dining table that has never once been used for dining.
• —Storage for the things you will definitely sort out.
• —Your flat is small. Your Sunday is not.
• —Bought for the guests. Used by the cat.
• —It is not a spare room. It is a room with a lot of jobs.

The thinking: Built to work with the sound off and the caption cropped. Each one is a complete thought in under ten words, so the line survives whatever the platform does to it.

Three products, three jobs. E-commerce and app.

BILLY bookcase

It holds books. It also holds vinyl, board games, a plant that is not doing well, and a photograph you keep meaning to frame.

BILLY has been in more homes than almost any piece of furniture on earth, which means it has held almost everything. Add shelves as you fill it. Add another one beside it when you run out. That is usually what happens.

The thinking: BILLY does not need selling, it needs recognising. The copy earns trust by describing the shelf the reader already owns rather than the one in the photograph.

POÄNG armchair

The frame is layered bent wood. It gives a little when you sit down and a little more when you lean back, which is the whole idea.

POÄNG has been made the same way since 1976. Not because we stopped having ideas, but because sitting down properly after a long day has not changed.

The thinking: One product truth, explained plainly, then a reason to believe drawn from longevity rather than adjectives. No use of the word comfortable, because the sentence about leaning back does that work better.

FRAKTA bag

You came in for a lamp. You are leaving with the bag as well.

FRAKTA carries laundry, recycling, sports kit and twenty-five kilos of things you did not plan to buy. Rinse it under a tap when it gets grim. People have used it as a picnic blanket, a moving box and, once, a boat.

We recommend two of those.

The thinking: The most playful of the three, because FRAKTA is the product customers are already affectionate about. The last line is short enough to be the thing that gets screenshotted.

A five-post sequence for one month. Different formats, different jobs, one voice.

Post 1 — Carousel, seven slides — Utility

Cover: Your hallway is ninety centimetres wide. Here is what fits.

Slides two to six: one product each, one line each. Hooks at eye height, not head height. A bench you can actually sit on to get your boots off. A mirror that makes the wall stop being a wall. Somewhere for post that is not the floor. A basket for the gloves that never match.

Final slide: Ninety centimetres. Still a room.

The thinking: Saves get more reach than likes on this format, so the cover promises something worth keeping. The measurement in the headline makes it feel like a solution rather than a sale.

Post 2 — Single image — Seasonal, Nordic

It gets dark at 15:42 today.That is not a reason to sit in it.

Three lamps, one room, and suddenly November is fine. Warm light low down, not cold light overhead. Your ceiling fixture is not your friend between now and March.

The thinking: Speaks to a shared local experience rather than a global brand message, which is where IKEA sounds least like an advertiser. The advice is genuinely correct, so the post is useful whether or not anyone buys a lamp.

Post 3 — Community prompt — Engagement

You built it wrong and it works better.

The KALLAX on its side. The spice rack holding books. The stool that became a bedside table.

Show us. We will not tell the instructions.

The thinking: IKEA hacking happens whether or not we join in, and pretending otherwise costs more credibility than it protects. The last line gives permission without sounding like the brand is trying to be your mate.

Post 4 — Carousel — Circularity

The most sustainable furniture in your home is the furniture already in it.

So before you replace the bookcase: spare parts are free, a new set of handles changes a whole unit, paint is cheaper than delivery, and a wobble is almost always one screw.

And if it really is finished, bring it back to us rather than to the kerb.

The thinking: A sustainability post that opens by discouraging a purchase is the only kind anyone believes. The commercial ask arrives last and small.

Post 5 — Short video caption — Brand

Allen key. Twenty minutes. One disagreement about which way round the back panel goes.Done.

The thinking: Three fragments and a full stop. It is the assembly experience described honestly, and honesty about the annoying part is what makes the brand sound like a person.

Press release for a circular furniture initiative. All figures bracketed, all quotes attributed to a placeholder.

IKEA will buy back your old furniture in [number] countries from [month]

Customers can return used IKEA furniture to any store for a voucher, and the furniture goes back on sale rather than into a skip.

MALMÖ, [date]. From [month], customers in [number] countries will be able to bring used IKEA furniture back to any store and receive a voucher for its assessed value. The returned pieces are checked, repaired where needed, and sold on in the store’s circular section at a reduced price.

The scheme covers [categories]. Customers get a valuation online before they travel, using photographs and the product name. Furniture that cannot be resold is broken down for materials rather than sent to landfill.

In the pilot, [number] pieces came back through [number] stores over [period]. [Percentage] were resold within [timeframe].

“Most people do not want to throw furniture away. They just have no idea what else to do with it on a Saturday morning,” said [Name], [Title] at IKEA. “This gives them somewhere to take it, and gives the next person a bookcase for half the price. The furniture was built to last longer than one home. It should.”

Full terms, the valuation tool and participating stores: [URL]

Press contact: [name, email, phone]

The thinking: The headline is the news, not a slogan, because a journalist cutting it to one line should still have the story. The quote earns its place by saying something a press release usually will not, which is that the barrier is practical rather than moral.

A pop-up in central Malmö aimed at people living in small rented flats. Invitation, on-site signage and wayfinding.

The idea

One rented flat, built to scale in an empty shop on Södergatan, furnished four completely different ways across four weeks by four people who actually live in flats that size. Visitors walk through it, argue about it, and take the floor plan home.

Invitation — email and paid social

Thirty-two square metres. Four people. Four completely different answers.

We have built one small Malmö flat inside an empty shop on Södergatan, and we are letting four people who live in flats this size furnish it their way. New one every week.

Come and disagree with all of them. Free, no booking, until [date].

On-site signage

The thinking: In-store copy is read standing up, usually mid-conversation, so every sign is one thought long. The signs are written to be overheard and repeated, because in a space this small word of mouth does more than the poster outside.

Wayfinding

• —Start here. It takes nine minutes.
• —This way to the other three.
• —Measuring tapes here. Take one.
• —Questions? The person in yellow lives in a flat like this too.

The thinking: Functional copy is still brand copy. A sign that says nine minutes rather than short tour respects the reader’s time and sounds like the same company that tells you a bookcase might outlast your flatshare.