Ikea is no stranger to generating buzz with its advertising. And its latest advert is no exception.
Ikea, the Swedish homeware giant, has come up with a novel way to reach pregnant women – by asking them to pee on an advert that features inside their catalogue. If she does so, and is pregnant, the ad reveals previously invisible text offering a special discount.
Fortunately, it’s not necessary to take a urine-soaked ad into the store in order to get the discount. (Phew!)
Rather, the discount is available to anyone who has signed up for Ikea’s Family program. Thus, the ad really functions more as a simple, free pregnancy test—and encourages readers who are pregnant to join Ikea Family and reap the benefits. (Families who are adopting, of course, can do the same—it’s not a discount for pregnant women only).
Mercene Labs, which helped create the ad, used a pregnancy test strip as a starting point and used the same technology to detect antibodies that bind to the pregnancy hormone hCG, resulting in a color change. “Technical advancements made during the work with this campaign have the potential to improve medical diagnostics,” the lab has claimed.
Reaction to the promotion has mostly been positive, with many pointing out that it’s not any grosser than taking an ordinary pregnancy test. “You just rip out the page and apply some urine to the marked area, and get a better price instead of a blue line,” said Magnus Jakobsson, who has been credited as coming up with the quirky promotion.
The advert has been widely talked about in the mainstream media, as well as on social media.
“People think it’s a strange, funny and likable ad. Well, mostly,” Jakobsson told AdWeek magazine.