Ikea's Tidy Billboards Campaign
IKEA recently got us all talking again with its “tidy billboards” campaign. From the front, they looked like normal home furnishing billboard ads. But behind the Ads were stacks of boxes that matched the outline of the billboard. The boxes contained everyday home items such as toys, clutter, and clothes packed into IKEA’s SAMLA boxes. IKEA literally leaned into “out-of-the-box thinking” for this campaign. “Behind every tidy room, there's a Samla," the copy on the front of the billboard posters read.
Research from IKEA showed that 83% of people in Sweden said they have one room that they struggle to tidy. Per Ads of the World, the survey also showed the top five spaces that were toughest to keep organized according to Swedes:
The closet – 24%
Garage/attic – 22%
Kitchen counter – 22%
Kitchen cupboards and drawers – 19%
Bathroom – 19%
Marketing Communications Leader at IKEA Sweden, Jonas Westberg, shared, "Keeping your home clean is always a battle, regardless of if it's a small flat, a castle, or something in between. We wanted to remind people of our great storage boxes in an out-of-the-box way – hopefully we can stop people in their tracks,” per Ads of the World.
Art Director at NoA Akestam Holst, IKEA’S lead creative agency in Sweden, Tiago Pinho, shared, "The front of the billboards looks like any typical ad for home furnishing. But when you look again, there's an honest twist. Everyday life is messy, then tidy, and then messy again. We think it's nice to show both sides of the story.”
The Tidy Billboards campaign was launched in major cities at the end of August, and the campaign is also running on digital and social channels.
This is not the first time IKEA has used its products in a campaign to in a very attention-grabbing way. Earlier this year, IKEA had a campaign featuring the FRAKTA bag and different points of view looking from the bottom of their signature blue bag. And back in 2024, the brand used blinds for billboards. IKEA Sweden offered free roller blinds to customers in exchange for turning their windows into billboards while they slept. One of the creatives at Akestam Holst NoA, Michal Sitkiewicz, shared, "This campaign is a playful example of how we could take a simple everyday product and turn it into something both functional and innovative,” per Famous Campaigns.
What IKEA has done so well in each of these campaigns is to build the idea around the product itself rather than trying to argue its usefulness or value. The product is the advertisement. The storage boxes are the hidden structure behind a billboard. A FRAKTA bag becomes a new way to see the world. A roller blind for windows is also a billboard wherever it is used. IKEA used familiar products its consumers knew well, but presented them in unexpected and unfamiliar ways.
As consumers are having greater digital fatigue these days and shorter attention spans, using experiential marketing or out-of-home advertising can give marketers and brands more tangible ways to capture attention. IKEA’s products are designed to solve everyday problems, and these campaigns make those everyday uses part of the creative itself. Attention doesn’t always require a bigger message; sometimes it just needs to be more effectively communicated.
Written by Hannah Lacy
Bio: Hannah Lacy is a digital content strategist with over seven years of experience in marketing and social media, and more than a decade of experience as a freelance writer contributing to various publications. A working mother of two school-aged children, she writes at the intersection of ambition and parenthood, with a passion for storytelling, advocating for working moms, and partnering with mission-driven brands and organisations.
