IKEA says ‘Silence the Critics’ against home shame in first Christmas campaign via Mother, London
IKEA has launched its first ever Christmas campaign for the UK and Ireland today, encouraging people to defy ‘home shame’ and open up their homes to guests this festive season.
The campaign developed by Mother London, kicks off with an advert featuring a couple who become racked with ‘home shame’ when they’re faced with impending guests. Suddenly, a whole host of ornaments and objects come to life and taunt them about the state of their home by performing an original grime track, voiced by legendary MC D Double E. Deciding to take action, the couple spruce up their place with some simple IKEA solutions, and Silence the Critics once and for all.
The advert deliberately goes against the tide of sentimental Christmas ads, and aims to delight audiences with its humorous, irreverent take on festive hosting.
The campaign will launch with the film across broadcast and VOD TV, cinema and digital media on 8th November. The 90”, 60” and 20” edits are fully supported with OOH, press, CRM and PR. Bespoke social content features three films, showing how to tackle potential home shame with simple changes using handy tips and IKEA products.
Complementing the campaign, IKEA is hosting a series of in-store events showing customers how easy it is to get their home party-ready, from virtual reality makeovers to ‘Christmas Treetorials’ and hosting hacks.
Says Sarah Green, county marketing manager, UK and Ireland: “Our first IKEA Christmas advert focuses on the phenomenon of ‘home shame’ – encouraging people to overcome the negative voices in their head holding them back from open up their homes.
“It was born from the common feeling, that along with the seasonal joys, a lot of us feel a looming sense of dread when it comes to hosting others with many of us feel ashamed of our homes over the Christmas period.
“We believe that every home can and should be worthy of a get-together and that with a little imagination, some clever products and ideas, there’s no reason not to be proud to invite your nearest and dearest over. This campaign aims to inspire us all to get our homes party-ready and ‘Silence the Critics’, once and for all.”
‘Silence the Critics’ opens with a small flat that’s seen better days. The family who live there are going about their business when the woman’s phone pings. It’s her friend confirming they’re still on for dinner at her home tonight. She hesitates before replying, looking around at the state of the flat.
As the woman wonders whether to have her friends over, the bespoke rap track, performed by D Double E, kicks in. Inanimate objects come to life, from lucky cats and novelty teapots, bringing the woman’s insecurities about her home to life through the rap. The state of the house is ridiculed by an array of figurines, from the tired furnishings and cracked walls to the lack of space.
Just as a toy dinosaur begins to rap more devastating blows, the woman’s hand appears and chucks him into the toy chest. Watched in stunned silence by their critical belongings, the couple transform their place, getting it ready for dinner with friends. They replace an outdated mirror with a stylish IKEA one, give the old sofa a new lease of life with an IKEA cover, and hang a framed IKEA print over the crack in the wall.
Later in the evening when the party is in full swing, the dinosaur peaks his head out of the toy chest, complimenting the couple on what they’ve done with the place – their critics have been silenced.
Agency: Mother
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Tom Kuntz
MJZ Producer: Emma Butterworth
MJZ Production Manager: Daniel Gay
Production Designer: Chris Oddy
Director of Photography: Chris Soos
Editing: Russell Icke at the Whitehouse
Music Supervision: Dave Bass and Arnold Hattingh at Wake the Town
Sound: 750mph
Post: Electric Theatre Collective
VFX: Electric Theatre Collective
Producer: Magda Krimitsou
Coordinator: Larisa Covaciu
Creative Director: James Sindle
2D Lead: James Belch
3D Lead: Patrick Krafft
2D Artists: Chris Fraser, Tomer Epsthein
3D Artists: Jordan Dunstall, Ryan Maddox, Mark Bailey, Remy Herisse, Edwin Leeds, Gregory Martin, Nikolai Maderthoner, Will Preston, Stefan Brown, Adrian Lan Sun Luk, Piers Limberg, Zach Pindolia, Olivia Grimmer, Romain Thirion, Richard Fry
Colourist: Luke Morrison
18 Comments
Just fucking awesome!
Damn thats good.
This is very good.
Love this! My only feedback would be the CTA could be a bit more direct. Why not say: BUY MORE FURNITURE NOW YOU INCOMPLETE AND INSIGNIFICANT USELESS C**NTS! Has a much nicer ring to it.
Anyone else think this could be quite jarring to people who are not well off financially?
IKEA are literally shaming them about every detail of their house.
Not everyone can afford to fix these things up. Especially at a time of year we know many face hardships
This is verbatim something the marketing team at IKEA Australia would say.
Hate the song, for starters, but that aside, reality is, this is how families live. So not only do 2019 parents have to contend with media telling them how to parent, feed, educate, online-monitor, praise, discipline, socialise, love, exercise and clothe their kids, now they cant even hide away from the outside world however they want without IKEA literally telling them how to live in the privacy of their own home? Great special effects, shit strategy. Not cool.
Stop being poor!
Ikea Australia would never do anything like this. It seems they have become way too conservative and this is no where near retail enough for their tick boxing ways.
@Hmmm and buddy, it is world known that Ikea is the cheap alternative to furniture. I think the strategy is to show affordable solutions to the middle class.
Absolutely love the music.
I bloody love this. Polarising as hell – and that’s why everyone will be talking about it. IKEA have broken the mould of the UK Christmas blockbuster ad battle.
Jealous. It’s awesome.
It’s wowsers who think this is “poor shaming” that kill good ideas in creative presentations every day.
I love it too, I just wish the resolve was – love the home you’re in with all its imperfections (the reality for most IKEA shoppers) rather than – go buy a load of stuff to solve this pretend advertising problem you losers.
Well then it wouldn’t be an ad for IKEA or anyone else trying to sell shit. Are you retarded? That’s the business we’re in.
I’m offended by people being offended
What part of “that crack in the wall” or “this place is so small it’s barely a house” can be addressed with shitty flat pack furniture?
. . . if you take away the special effects/animation, you’re basically left with a good old sing the problem share the solution ad from about the 1950/60/70s.
As in, if you can’t think of an idea, sing the brief.
Love this original idea – and it was executed brilliantly
Cool but this never to rarely happens in Australia… so why post it here?