IKEA has transformed our homes. Since its arrival in Spain, it has given us practical solutions in our daily lives and has democratized design.

However, IKEA is perceived as a brand that always has the same products despite its efforts to renew its catalogue periodically. To change this perception, every year IKEA launches a campaign with the aim of raising awareness of the arrival of new products in its stores.

In 2021 this campaign had an additional component: IKEA was celebrating its 25th anniversary in Spain.

Aims: - Increase total brand awareness. - Improve brand perception in brand desire, emotional meaning, and range appeal. - Encourage visits to the IKEA store and website. - Increase sales of products catalogued as new arrivals. IKEA arrived in Spain 25 years ago, and that moment marked the birth of a new generation who don’t know life without the brand: the IKEA natives.

As a result of this insight, the strategy was key to demonstrate the impact IKEA has had on our homes. We picked six of these IKEA natives and invited them to take a horrific trip in time to the 1990s in the form of a reality show. In over 100 hours of filmed content, these Gen Zers had to survive a house with an explosive stove, heavy itchy blankets, rotary phones, smoky mirrors, and dim lights...

But in this nightmare, there was a ray of hope—the “IKEA paradise,” where new products were given to those who won challenges, making their lives a little bit more comfortable.

If there is a generation who don’t know life without IKEA, let's weaponize that generational gap to demonstrate the impact that IKEA has had on our homes. How? By locking Gen Zers inside a house from the past.

This is how we challenged six young contestants with a world unknown to them. A place where they had to manage to recycle without recycling bins or connect to the Internet with a dial-up modem. In the reality show, IKEA's new product drops appeared in painfully small doses to make the nightmare a bit less terrible.

As the reality show unfolded, a transmedia branded content strategy was launched. The contestants’ day-to-day lives could be followed through the episodes posted on all social platforms and the content the posted from their own channels.