Submitted by OgilvyAgency IPI Score 95/100

The Book that will change your life

Content Creation

Ogilvy relaunched the IKEA catalogue in the Middle East as a life-guide, with a launch film about a catalogue guru extended across radio and social listening.

Case in 60 seconds

The IKEA catalogue is easy to overlook, and Ogilvy needed to give Middle East audiences a fresh reason to open and value it.

People do not want a furniture list, they want answers to everyday problems, and the catalogue could be framed as the place those answers live.

Position the IKEA catalogue as a life-guide, with specific pages that solve specific problems.

A launch film followed Ali, a slob turned catalogue guru, and the same format was carried online, on radio, and through problem-solving responses on social media.

No performance metrics are published on the agency page; the case is presented as a creative launch idea, with reach, engagement, and sales impact not disclosed.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

Middle East home shoppers who treat a product catalogue as disposable and easy to ignore.
A furniture catalogue competes for attention against far more entertaining content and is rarely read for its own sake.
Making a retail catalogue feel worth engaging with, rather than a list of products.
IKEA positioned its catalogue as a practical guide to living better at home, page by page.
Attaching concrete answers to specific page numbers turns browsing into a search for solutions, giving people a reason to open the book.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • Launch film following Ali the catalogue guru
  • Radio problem-solving segments
  • Social-listening responses offering catalogue-based solutions
  • Ads made from reviews of the catalogue

Partners

  • Ogilvy (Memac Ogilvy Dubai)

Participation mechanic

  • Answering real problems people raised on social media with pages from the catalogue

Creator role

  • Not disclosed

Why Ogilvy's strategy worked

  1. 1

    Giving an overlooked product asset a single, clear role, a source of answers, made it worth engaging with.

  2. 2

    Anchoring the promise to specific page numbers turned browsing into a search for solutions.

  3. 3

    A likeable character carried an abstract idea and made it easy to follow.

  4. 4

    Repeating one format across film, radio, and social conversations let the idea show up wherever audiences were.

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