"In research, averages are misleading when it comes to Indian consumers": Kavitha Rao, IKEA

Come 2022, the pandemic is seemingly coming to an end. Many people are returning to offices, and children and young adults are returning to schools and colleges.

That’s not the case with everyone though. Some of us (including the author of this article) are still working remotely and struggling with the pitfalls of working from home – distractions from family members, doorbell ringing during important video meetings and more.

This is the focal point of IKEA’s latest ad campaign. The campaign carries the tagline “everyday situations, everyday, solutions” and is live across television, OOH, and digital channels. The ads will soon start playing out on television in the cities that IKEA already has a presence in – namely Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Mumbai.

In one of the ads, we witness a father-daughter duo working alongside each other. One is preparing for her exam with a laptop, maybe she’s taking online classes and her father is referring to some files next to her.

“Simple solutions can solve a lot of problems that people face every day at home. That’s where the thought of portraying everyday situations and IKEA’s solutions to the problems came from,” says Kavitha Rao, country commercial manager, IKEA India, over a video call.

Rao tells us that since IKEA’s Hyderabad launch in 2018, the company has released a series of different ad films in the market.

“At this point of time, irrespective of whether someone is working in a hybrid model or whether they’re physically going to work or school - there are entire industries that are still completely working from home. The ads are still relevant because there are people who are still dealing with these situations,” she says.

“TV continues to be an important medium for us. For the last few years, since the pandemic hit, OTT has become a medium that a lot of people pay attention to,” she says.

Rao adds that the company’s research showed that while people were spending extended periods of time at home, one of the things they were doing is watching more television and OTT content. “Apart from cooking, watching TV, even if it was just for a few minutes to catch up with the news was a predominant activity at home,” she says.

She adds that according to the company, digital channels of advertising are extremely important and since the last five years, she has witnessed the audience transition to favour audio visual and digital mediums.

Since the last decade, IKEA’s India strategy had been very store-oriented but it has had to adapt to an omni-channel strategy. “Search engine optimisation is also very important to us because a search engine is the first place people go when they want to search for a piece of furniture they want to buy.”

Rao adds that the consumer journey in-store and online is quite closely intertwined. Customers might spot an item they want to buy, in-store and they might go back and finish the purchase online. The company also realised that people need assistance and support - even if the journey is online, shopping on IKEA’s e-commerce site. The brand created provisions to call customer care for questions that they have and whatever help they need on the purchase journey.

IKEA currently have follows an omni-channel marketing strategy which is making its presence felt in Hyderabad, Mumbai and on e-commerce channels in Bangalore.

“Some Indians live in joint families, some live in nuclear families and the needs of these families are all very different from each other. The thing is, with research, averages can be misleading when it comes to Indian consumers so we have to focus on appealing to different Indian consumer groups,” she says.

“We would like to focus on these areas in these cities because at the end of the day, we are cost conscious about our media spends. If we show an ad in a city where we don’t have a presence (such as, say, Delhi), it won’t make sense - what will the call to action be in that case? In any case, we are confident that we will eventually achieve national scale and can advertise accordingly.”

Rao tells us that one important development that happened during the pandemic is that people were spending extended periods of time at home. Because of this, people are paying attention to home furnishing and home decor. Rao tells us that customers are increasingly interested in multi-functional furniture (such as the trolley, which is emphasised on in the ad) and storage solutions.

“We are worried that it could impact the customer experience if they order a product but we are not able to assist with the installation of the product. In cities like Bangalore, we are able to provide services from delivery to setup,” she says.

When it comes to customers who purchase furniture - she broadly splits them up into three categories. The first category of people are those who are eager to experiment and put the furniture together themselves.

The second category is a little hesitant, but are willing to try. The third category of people are those who believe they can’t DIY it, and they don’t want to try. “The third category are people who believe that if they had that one extra hour, they would rather spend it with their family than spend it trying to put furniture together.”

Rao further tells us that the company had to make many changes to their product range to adapt to Indians’ requirements for cooking, furniture, and home spaces.

“We have a full repertoire of products that are available in Indian markets that we don’t offer in other global markets,” she says.

She elaborates that the company also had to do a lot of research in terms of understanding people’s lives at home and their needs. Value for money and affordability became two important propositions for the company to offer because Indian consumers look for these things, irrespective of their salary bracket.

Most furniture retailers in India allow users to shop from any part of the country and get the parcels delivered with the help of shipping and logistics staff they employ on ground, but that is not the case with IKEA.

“The challenge is only from the logistics standpoint. We have the logistics network, but unlike a lot of e-commerce retailers, we aren’t shipping only parcels but furniture as well. Most of the time, our products are not a one person delivery. We need to have a network of staff to support large ticket deliveries. It’s important to have a fulfilment network on ground to make the deliveries possible. We are still in the early stages of our journey and it will take time for us to build up on that,” she signs off.

Agency Credits:

Agency: Dentsu Impact

Managing Partner: Anupama Ramaswamy, Ajit Devraj

National Creative Director: Anupama Ramaswamy

Business: Hindol Purkayastha, Anahita Brar, Meghana Majumdar, Aditi Bajpai

Films Head: Suprotim Day

Group Creative Director: Ankur Garg

Films Team: Aamir Khan