IT’S HARD to believe the hype over Ikea’s opening next week could get any bigger, but the Swedes are indefatigable in their PR strategy. Dublin was treated to a range of Ikea treats yesterday, including a “pop-up” office at St Stephen’s Green and a scattering of Ikea cushions at various city spots.
And then we have the advertisements – the billboards are everywhere and presumably won’t be disappearing any time soon. One may, however, have missed the mark a touch, illustrating the difficulties faced by newcomers to the notoriously parochial Irish market.
In this instance, consumers are urged by a large poster to bring out their “rebel” by installing glossy red kitchen doors in their presumably otherwise dull homes.
The only problem is the combination of the location of the billboard (on Dublin’s North Strand) and the domestic implication of the word “rebel”. Think rebel county, think GAA, think North Strand as one of Dublin’s GAA heartlands and you start to get the message. In short, telling the Dubs to bring out their inner rebel as the GAA season reaches its peak might not have been the best idea.
More seriously, the arrival of the flatpack kings when the latest retail sales figures show a 31 per cent drop in furniture sales throws up at least one intriguing question. How much of the fall-off in sofa purchases over the past year can be attributed to the “waiting for Ikea” factor, whereby we’ve all been hoarding our demand in anticipation of the store’s fabulous doors opening? This summer furniture sales figures could well make interesting reading.
