CHARLOTTE ó (BUSINESS WIRE) ó IKEA, the world’s leading home furnishings retailer, today announced that it will install a fully-furnished room-setting on a corner in Uptown Charlotte, giving residents an advance look at IKEA shopping concepts before the February 18 grand opening of IKEA Charlotte – the Swedish company’s first store and restaurant destination in the Carolinas. IKEA offers inspirational room-settings and flat-packed products, which may be new to many Charlotte consumers, so this pop-up room-setting represents an attempt to introduce the IKEA concept in a non-retail environment.
The campaign by Deutsch NY includes various marketing components highlighted by a life-sized pop-up IKEA room-setting at the intersection of Trade and Tryon Streets – a key intersection in Uptown Charlotte. With an exterior reflecting the outside of a flat-packed IKEA product, the pop-up will offer the public an opportunity to experience IKEA products first-hand as well as see and touch an IKEA room-setting – the first in Charlotte.
Deutsch worked with TH Outdoor to create the 15′ x 15′ pop-up room-setting, or bedroom-sized box, filled completely with IKEA furniture such as a bed, nightstand, wardrobe, chair and dresser, and accessorized with bedding, lamps, rugs and prints. The pop-up room-setting will be open to the public Thursday and Friday, February 12 and 13, from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. IKEA will donate the furniture from the pop-up room-setting to a local charity once the campaign has concluded.
“We wanted to mark our entrance into the Carolinas with IKEA Charlotte by inspiring people to change the way they think about home furnishings and accessories,” said Richard Castanon, store manager of the future IKEA Charlotte. “Displaying fully furnished room-settings helps emphasize how IKEA offers both furniture and accessories with inventory on-site so customers can take purchases home the same day.”
This unique marketing campaign, which began February 2, includes a variety of branded elements including pizza delivery boxes, billboards, television, radio and prints ads. Also, a glass truck containing an IKEA room-setting will drive around Charlotte, offering the public an additional – and mobile – opportunity to experience IKEA products and style.
The 356,000-square-foot IKEA Charlotte is located on 25 acres in the University City area at the northeast corner of I-85 and City Boulevard. The store employs more than 400 coworkers and features 10,000 exclusively-designed items, a 350-seat IKEA Restaurant, 49 inspirational room-settings, three model home interiors, a supervised children’s play area and approximately 1,700 parking spaces. Other IKEA stores in the Southeast are located in Atlanta, GA; Orlando, FL; Sunrise, FL; and Woodbridge, VA. A store also is scheduled to open Summer 2009 in Tampa, FL.
There currently are more than 290 IKEA stores in 36 countries, including 35 in the U.S. Other new stores will open in: Centennial, CO; Somerville, MA; and Tampa, FL. Since its 1943 founding in Sweden, IKEA has offered a wide range of home furnishings and accessories of good design and function, at low prices so the majority of the people can afford them. IKEA has been ranked in FORTUNE’s annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” list (three years in a row), Working Mother magazine’s annual list of “100 Best Companies for Working Mothers” (four years in a row) and Training magazine’s annual “Top 100” ranking of companies that excel at human capital development (five years in a row). IKEA incorporates environmentally friendly and socially responsible efforts into day-to-day business, and continually supports initiatives that benefit causes such as children and the environment. For more information about IKEA, please go to www.IKEA-USA.com.