Omni Channel Marketing

It’s about to get all real on this office space.

A few months back, I received an email from IKEA for the IKEA Home Tour contest. The team was coming to Kansas City and they were looking for entries. All you had to do was make a short video of your space in need and send it in. So, I busted out the iPhone shot some down and dirty footage of my sad basement office space, cut it together, sent it in and thought “That’ll be the end of that.” Much to my surprise, we made the finalists for the area, and to my surprise again, we are one of the two chosen. Today, the team arrived to shoot video, check out the space, and plan out what they are going to do with the space.

This post is not about the makeover though. It is about how IKEA continues to take excellent advantage of digital media as a marketing tool for the brand.

If you go out and look at the Home Tour site, you see a polished website that leverages video, a blog, social media, product placement, and tips to extend the IKEA brand. With each short video, product that is used in the redesign is featured and linked back the IKEA page where the product lives. The Pinterest section leads back the dedicated Pinterest board where recipients have posted their images as well as the team, and there are hooks to related boards, all of which drives back to product and enforcing the IKEA brand. The design blog takes you to a curated section with short right ups and videos from the Home Tour teams progress. And then there are the videos.

Video is the fast growing consumed media on the web, your phone, and in other digital spaces. It has rapidly taken over because of its ability to tell a story in a short digestible bite, and the ability to link back to longer form content if needed. In addition, with prices on gear falling, the availability of high end editing software, a DIY maker movement, and the ease of sharing content, it is possible for a skeleton crew to put together a solid bit of video work that has tremendous impact. The crew at my house today consisted of 5 people. 2 of them were producing the video. This is the same crew on every makeover, doing each shoot. They have a limited budget, and tie frame, but they are creating solid work with definite reach and penetration for the IKEA brand, which brings me back to the fact that IKEA gets digital marketing better than most. I’ve posted a number of articles on what I KEA is doing in the digital space and this is just one more.

To date the team has produced 203 video segments according to the numbering on the site. Pretty impressive when you think about it. 203 videos that average 3 minutes in length. 203 videos that show the problem, the fix, and then go through and talk about the IKEA product used. Think of it as a long form commercial that is less about in your face selling, and more about how IKEA helps you solve a problem.

That is a winning marketing solution and another winner from IKEA’s marketing division.

Over the weekend I was in Chicago for a bit of R&R, good food, and fun. While I was there I decided to hit the Miracle Mile for a bit of research and investigation into marketing trends, displays, and general design trends. I tend to find that merchandising, and packaging for some of the larger retail giants seems to be a good indicator for emerging design trends. While I was at Nordstrom’s I noticed that TOMS Shoes had a number of VR headsets and headphones set up, and the sales staff was encouraging people to try them on.

Since I am a huge fan of technology, and using it to extend the marketing experience I decided to investigate.

What I found was a 3 and a half minute video with solid surround sound audio. The message wasn’t about TOMS shoes, instead it was about the TOMS One for One campaign that is a massive omni channel campaign for good. TOMS One for One provides shoes, water, sight, safe birth and bully prevention world wide.

I have been trying to find an example video to link in here but haven’t been able to come across anything. So, I’ll just have to describe the experience, and if you are in Chicago or a Nordstrom’s that has the set up, check it out for yourself. Basically this is a full immersive experience where you are introduced to children in a village in Peru, and volunteers that explain the program and ask you to get involved. Everywhere you look, the world moves with you. It is Virtual Reality in action. You look down, you see the earth beneath your feet. Up and you see the sky. Straight ahead and left to right, video of the children in the village interacting with you, the virtual camera. The message is straight forward. Buy TOMS shoes and Tom’s will donate a matching pair of shoes to a child in Peru. There is a secondary call to action, asking you the viewer to get involved by going to the TOMS One for One website, where additional options are available. It’s pretty damn impressive. The video quality could have been a higher resolution, but you don’t really care when you are experiencing this. The audio was fantastic. And while, I tended to forget at times what the campaign was about, I was distracted by the cool tech, it did what it was supposed to. It kept me thinking about it, got me involved, and connected me to the Brand.

In addition to the VR set up, Tom’s has also launched a number of micro sites, a YouTube Channel, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts all of which are coordinated to drive traffic back to the main site and encourage the visitor to donate and give.

Very cool stuff. Great campaign.