Summary
IKEA is one of the biggest names in the world for furniture and interior goods, with stores around the globe selling this Swedish company’s products. IKEA has always had a talented marketing team, withand ways to get people’s attention. Their latest one is something totally new and very unexpected - it is slice of life-style manga and anime!
That’s right, this furniture giant is selling their newest products using their own original manga and anime shorts. They are not being produced by a Japanese studio, either, but are being made as a collaboration between IKEA US and an Argentinian animation studio called Clubcamping. The campaign is targeted specifically at students who are going to be moving for university, with the slogan “Find yourslice of life.”
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This new marketing campaign launched early last week on IKEA’s officialTikTokchannel, along with itsYouTubeand website, too. The three anime shorts are each 45 seconds long to make the most out of TikTok’s formatting, and tell three stories about different college students. The first lives in a dorm, the second in off-campus housing, and the third with their parents. They all highlight what the students can do with their housing situation, whatever it may be.
The videos feature IKEA products seamlessly blended into the characters ' rooms to show how they can organize themselves for this next chapter in their life, and are set withlo-fi music in the background. An accompanying manga-style story will be released in the future on IKEA’s website, featuring biographies and more story about each of the three original characters. All the products featured in the videos are listed on the website as well.
This kind of marketing shows a couple of new developments in the advertising world. Firstly, it shows just howmainstream anime and mangaare becoming. While not made by a Japanese studio, these IKEA shorts are still very clearly anime-inspired in their animation style and their slice of life vibe - even the slogan “find your slice of life” is arguably inspired by the anime genre of the same name.
Secondly, it shows exactly what generation of people are now starting to buy things like furniture and other home goods.Generation Z, and Millennialsas well, are the ones who are typically buying interior goods - and they are both generations where manga and anime are commonplace, especially Generation Z who have grown up with anime’s transition into the mainstream.
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You can watch all the anime shorts and read more about each story on IKEA’sofficial website.
