Sweden Defends Beautiful Landmarks Overshadowed By Their IKEA Product Names
Video screenshot via Visit Sweden
Besides being named after girls and boys, IKEA’s products take on the monikers of real places in its home country.
In hopes to clear the names of landmarks overshadowed by their IKEA counterparts, Visit Sweden has launched a campaign revealing the inspirations behind product monikers while encouraging tourists to visit those sites. The amusing spot was produced by advertising agency Forsman & Bodenfors.
Right now, if you google names like “Toftan,” “Ektorp,” “Voxnan,” “Hemsjö,” “Kallax,” you’ll be inundated with search results covering trash cans, couches, bath towels, and shelving units. Even more alarmingly, “Bolmen” is a toilet brush and not in reference to the pristine Lake Bolmen in Småland, the province that IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad grew up in.
The Swedish tourism board now wants to ignite recollections of “clear water and beautiful surroundings, and not a water closet in desperate need of cleansing.”
“In Sweden, we are proud of IKEA and in a way you can say that they helped us make Swedish places world-famous through the names they borrowed for their products,” explains Nils Persson, Visit Sweden’s chief marketing officer in a statement via Creative Review. “Now we want, with warmth and a twinkle in our eye, to show the originals behind the product names and invite the world to discover the whole of Sweden.”
[via Creative Review, video and cover image via Visit Sweden]
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