Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

the cuddly corporation

Canadian magazine Maisonneuve has a great article about how IKEA has managed to become such a huge corporate monolith, yet still inspire fierce devotion among its customers and employees. (“For the Love of Poäng” - Dec. 2004)

But while all signs point toward "major multinational," Ikea has managed to maintain its cuteness. Who didn’t love that commercial with the poor ugly lamp put out on the street? Not everyone knows, though, that wunderkind director Spike Jonze (of Being John Malkovich fame) was hired to create it. In other words, one should not underestimate just how calculated this cute image is — and that goes for the whole lexicon of adorable names the company has created: the Poäng chair, the Billy bookcase, the multipurpose Slom jar, the Dunker floor lamp, a whole line of pale particleboard furniture dubbed Lack. Many of these names have become catchphrases for my generation. Even cuter is the lady who sits in an office in Sweden coming up with these tags and making sure they don’t mean anything rude in the many different languages of Ikea’s customers. (A bed name meaning "good lay" in German did squeak by once, though.)

Point is, Ikea has sold itself to the world — and by that I mean not only its products, but also its aesthetic … When Ikea came to the US in 1985, the going trends in furniture were brocade couches and heavy dark wood — a kind of gothic ornate. Ikea bucked the trend, offering the Swedish aesthetic instead: birch furniture and spare design. Before, such design had been reserved for the rich, the artistic and the minimalist. But Ikea put chic on sale…

Ikea’s good-guy image is ultimately sustained by one simple fact: it is not an American multinational. No one thinks of Sweden as a superpower with plans to take over the world.

(Link found via Design Observer.)