Ikea, the global Swedish-founded multinational group that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories, among other useful goods and home services, utilized our services in conjunction with retail location grand openings and several designer showhouses with which our firm has relationships throughout North America.
The kitchen products and services division of the worldwide retail leader was in need of strong engagements with both design trade professionals and consumers, spanning marketplaces from the Northwest and Midwest to the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. Known for our specialization in business-to-business and business-to-consumer branding from coast to coast, our firm was an obvious choice to help.
Annually, Eberly & Collard Public Relations (ECPR) works with designer showhouses and other key design expos to form public relations alliances and paid sponsorships. This provides a unique type of exposure for our clients who manufacture or sell kitchen and bath products, or a multitude of other related home products and accessories.
Some of these have included Architectural Digest Design House, Kitchen & Bath Industry Show, Coastal Living Design House, Pasadena Showhouse for the Arts, Minneapolis ASID Showcase Home, Southern Living Idea House, The Modernism Showhouse, LA Home Showhouse, Chicago Luxe Interiors Home Tours, and so many more.
From the time ECPR connected with the Ikea Kitchens team, we collaborated on a strategy to bring brand awareness to the full range of design options the company and its kitchen and bath services offer.
Our creative strategists met and developed a program that focused on events to draw target audiences to well-planned and publicized events. The combination of public relations alliances with designer showhouses and other product expos allowed for the Ikea Kitchens products, such as cabinetry, cupboards, shelving, storage units, fixtures, and furniture, to be shown at high-traffic venues and stores. A concentration was placed upon presenting real-time, touch-and-feel kitchen design services with use of the retailer’s products.
Advertising and publicity campaigns were added to the mix to promote special venue events and new retail location openings. This helped drive energetic crowds to come out in numbers that exceeded the goal in each case.
We interviewed the company’s regional teams to uncover content strategies and means for deployment that would be synergistic with their customer audiences no matter the region or specific location. Our goal was to unify their messaging; develop online, print and onsite content; and, of course, manage their public relations efforts in alignment with corporate brand standards.
Results achieved by our ECPR team included some of the country’s top showhouse and expo participation acquisitions for Ikea Kitchens. A long-time objective was to participate in top designer and brick-and-mortar events around the country. To this end, our team first secured, then marketed, the retailer’s kitchen design service staffs as coveted participants at top-rated, nationally renowned showhouses and other high-profile locations in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco.
Our results provided opportunities for presentations and demonstrations of kitchen installation and design services in a multitude of design styles. Marketing initiatives promoted modern, traditional, transitional. contemporary, and mid-century modern kitchen styles.
We evoked a 58% increase in overall audience engagement / showhouse participants. 62% of the branded content we wrote and attained, which was secured through strategic and organized campaigns, generated impressions of new forms. 42 product demonstrations and more than 10 million impressions were achieved by ECPR.
The innovative groundwork and collective marketing programs developed and managed by ECPR led to increasing name equity and brand cognizance with both trade and consumer markets, and, ultimately, led to many new kitchen installations for lucky customers.