ADdicted: IKEA's Unpackaged Goods

Contextual advertising is when the content of the ad is based on the environment in which it will be placed. It happens often online, like when you see an ad for a health supplement next to an article about improving your health, because it's relatively easy to do online.

But contextual advertising in the physical world is much more challenging to execute, and even more difficult to do well.

So when you see something like IKEA's "Unpackaged Goods" out-of-home campaign, it makes a big impression.

(Millions and millions of them, I'll bet, based on all the earned media this is likely to receive.)

As an idea, placing advertisements for containers that store "stuff" immediately next to ads for the "stuff" those containers can store makes a lot of sense.

But successfully coordinating the execution of that idea amongst multiple brands in a physical setting filled with billboards like Sankofa Square?

That's what really makes this idea worth talking about.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4dc230_48aee53e449d48d4bef2e07e300f9342/720p/mp4/file.mp4

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P.S. Kudos to the team at Rethink Communications for coming up with this excellent campaign, and a hat-tip to Ali Satchu for posting this video on his LinkedIn feed.