

IKEA's brilliant Facebook campaign - oneplusone
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10404937-71.html

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brown9-2
I don't understand the last sentence in the quoted article:

 _Before Facebook could take credit for its own wonderful ingenuity in
creating the world's most needed Web site, thousands of Swedes were spreading
pictures of IKEA showrooms all around the personal galaxy known as their
profile pages._

Before Facebook could take credit for creating Facebook, thousands of Swedes
were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms around Facebook? The video states
this took place during the Autumn of 2009. The chronology and weird verb tense
makes the sentence super confusing.

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Timothee
Blogspam. Original story is here:

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10404937-71.html?part=rss&...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10404937-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5)

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Timothee
It got fixed.

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metra
Giving away free products will always be labeled a "brilliant campaign."

The game that was given away free a few weeks ago, Radiohead, NIN.

I'd say the campaign would be brilliant if you could measure an increase in
consumers after the campaign. I would just claim my free furniture and that's
it. Not necessarily shop there any further.

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foulmouthboy
The brilliant part of it was making people tag their names into the Facebook
profile's photos. You get those photos showing up in the Walls and news
streams of contestants who then explain what they're doing to their 150+
friends who then tag themselves and share the promotion again.

Brilliant use of the tool to capitalize on network effects of Facebook.

~~~
BigDamnDeal
Yeah, this seems especially excellent for getting initial awareness of a
product – in this case, that specific IKEA location, as represented by its
manager.

It also seems like a good way to build a mailing list, as the Obama campaign
did when they got everyone's phone numbers so they could text them the name of
the VP pick. That was some brilliant use of social media for old-fashioned
mailing-list-building disguised as a gimmick.

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mpk
I'm assuming that Facebook would use data gathered from people being tagged in
images to optimize their own shape recognition software.

People tagging themselves as furniture must really mess that up :)

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henriklied
Does Facebook recognize objects in photos?

I remember reading a paper about this a year ago (where they concluded it
would take to much processing), but the site seems to be down. Here's Google
Cache of the PDF if anyone's interested:
[http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:A9_-uStMjeIJ:www.enriqu...](http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:A9_-uStMjeIJ:www.enriquegortiz.com/publications/FacebookPaper.pdf+facebook+facial+recognition+paper&cd=2&hl=nn&ct=clnk&client=safari)

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stevoski
Come on. It's Sweden. It's IKEA. I think most Swedes have heard of IKEA by now
and would be aware if a new IKEA was opening in the vicinity. And Malmo is not
exactly a tiny, unknown backwater. They've probably had IKEA in Malmo for
decades.

I suspect the Facebook campaign was novel but not a brilliant runaway success,
as measured by an increase is sales.

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wgren
>Come on. It's Sweden. It's IKEA. I think most Swedes have heard of IKEA by
now

Basic rule of advertising, repetition means reinforcement. Also even if they
of course knew about the brand, now they saw products they might not have seen
before.

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andreshb
I think Ikea is great, but I hope this is not replicated massively by other
brands.

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wallflower
Ikea is a part of people's lives.

"It has even been estimated that one in 10 Europeans are conceived in an Ikea
bed."

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4254181.stm>

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sevenofsix
Cardigans are from Jönköping..not Malmö...totally different.

