IKEA Makes Over Kobe Monorail

This guerilla promo is in the same vein as the guerilla case study on Ikea's grand opening in Brooklyn, which we covered last week. To raise awareness and generate buzz for the April 14 grand opening of a new Ikea store in Port Island, Japan, Ikea gave the Kobe Portliner Monorail a trendy furniture makeover! Complete with couches, upholstery, and curtains, the trains became moving showrooms for the furniture giant. With a decorated exterior, it would certainly be difficult to not see the train coming!

As we discussed before, Ikea is a great example of a company that is able to connect to its customers, allowing them to interact with the product. Hands-on experiences like this are essential in the minds of some customers, and this gives Ikea a physical presence outside of their stores, connecting to the everyday lives of individuals. This is also similar to the Hugo Boss subway takeover that we covered previously, which was also extremely effective.

Because of the nature of the subway as a vehicle to transport mass amounts of people, these marketing efforts are smart and simple ways to increase the number of possible impressions for your promotional plan, therefore increasing its impact. Ikea's genius use of the space and interactivity of furniture on a subway train makes this a clever guerilla promotional effort. The key to any effective guerilla marketing campaign is to relate your product with a specific environment. This type of lifestyle branding has a strong emotional connection with consumers that attempts to establish long-term relationships that are fruitful to both parties involved. Hence, this could be done with promotional reusable water bottles, or custom promotional t-shirts. In the effort, a subway--or another high-traffic location--could be turned into a kitchen or closet to create a pseudo product environment where consumers can interact with your brand and build emotional connections with it in the process.

Via: Gizmodo.