Ikea’s ‘Joy of Storage’ ad turns neatness into catharsis

Ikea has a new ad campaign that "celebrates the joy of storage". There is no National Storage Day, so I suppose someone has got to do it. Doesn't it get tedious when advertisers insist there is joy in the most mundane of things?

Yes, but not in this case. The new ad, created by Ikea’s UK advertising agency Mother, shows “a flock of much-loved T-shirts as they go on an epic journey to find their home”. After travelling across seas and mountains, they eventually come to rest in a successfully assembled Ikea Pax wardrobe.

This witty, expensive-looking tale is the latest instalment in a campaign that the Swedish retail giant’s marketers call the “Wonderful Everyday”. And it is vaguely wonderful, and not just because it makes the idea of hanging up a T-shirt seem plausible.

In his most recent stand-up show, the comedian David O’Doherty riffs on his misplaced faith that the purchase of a pizza-cutter – one of those wheels that rolls satisfyingly through crisp bases – will transform his life. All he needs is that one little kitchen implement to make his every anxiety go away.

For some, a squiggle-shaped shelving unit will be their pizza-cutter. Access to the correct amount of storage is the closest they will ever get to achieving mindfulness. But sadly, the only people who have sufficient storage space in their lives are Tibetan monks, Cher from Clueless and the guy who owns Storage World. And even they have got that one drawer that won't close all the way.

Visions of an ordered, symmetrical life

Ikea knows this, which is why it torments consumers with visions of an ordered, symmetrical life of spice racks, wine racks, hat racks and magazine racks. In Ikea world, shoe racks actually contain rows of matching pairs of wearable shoes, not just one battered ballet flat from 2006.

With creative organisation comes the freedom and catharsis of a clutter-free life, according to the retailer, which counts “happy inside” among its past slogans. The “f” word, functional, doesn’t cut it, as it’s far too reductive.

Over to Peter Wright, Ikea marketing manager for the UK and Ireland. "The 'Joy of Storage' is about the time saved and the stress reduced when you have things easily to hand, stored out of sight." The "out of sight" part is debatable, as the retailer has in fact been a driving agent behind the key change in storage fashion over the past decade: better out than in.

Rather than locking your worldly possessions behind closed cabinet doors – which could be masking the eclectic jumble of a chaotic mind – the idea is to make sure that everything you ever had the good taste to buy is visible to your guests.

The display should be just as improbably neat as it would be in an Ikea showroom itself and just as quirky as it would in the kind of independent design shop that is tucked away on a side street, not plonked next to a dual carriageway.

This latest Ikea television ad is not the first of its campaign to be storage-themed. Its previous “Make Room for Your Life” campaign played directly to the demographic that is both rampantly consumerist and proudly nerdy, with one iteration depicting a man and his floor-to-ceiling vinyl collection.

The customer to whom it appealed was the one who has done his time in the kitchen at parties (as the soundtrack to yet another Ikea ad put it) and has form when it comes to “shelfies” (Instagrams of carefully curated spines on bookshelves).

The ideal Ikea customer will have enough of a retro-hipster sensibility to still crave physical entertainment products – as wall decorations, at least – which is why the new campaign will be complemented by the construction of special-build bookcases on out-of-home advertising sites near book shops.

Who needs Kindles? The global company, which operates in 26 countries, employs 135,000 people and attracts 684 million visitors to its stores each year, has an interest – for now – in staving off the digitisation of culture. It could hardly fail to, given its reported habit of selling a Billy bookshelf once every 10 seconds. Those margins truly will be wonderful everyday.

When it comes to clothes, Ikea can relax – they can’t be stored in the cloud. The worst that can happen is piles on the ground. So instead, visitors to fashion sites will be targeted with web ads for Ikea wardrobes as they browse.

These are point-of-sale reminders that if you’re thinking about buying stuff, but you’re not also formulating a plan as to how you might store it, stack it, frame it or otherwise present it, Ikea is here to tell you that you’re doing it wrong.