IKEA, the Swedish furniture giant, entered the Chinese market in 1998. Since then, it has had tremendous influence on the Chinese furniture and interior design markets. IKEA’s creative home furnishing ideas fascinate the younger generation and have intrigued their interest in IKEA’s “ready-to-assemble” furniture. Meanwhile, the company also offers other products and services and prefers to be seen as a diversified brand rather than solely as a maker of DIY furniture.

Worldwide, IKEA’s kitchen brand account for a large part of its global revenues. But in China, its share of total turnover is negligible. This can be accounted for IKEA’s current stature in China as a innovative and fashionable furniture brand which was built upon the brand knowledge and esteem it has constructed over the last decade. Therefore, IKEA had to launch a campaign to expand its brand identity in order to be perceived as a more diversified brand and to promote its kitchen line of products to the target audience.

The new campaigns are well focused on its current targets: young couple and young family with children. The campaigns showed the IKEA kitchen sets, aspirational morden lifestyle and happy family ambience. Moreover, the campaings were launched at different locations with heavy pedestrian traffic in order to reach out a wider sets of audiences:

- Outside the store: projection of 3D images to catch the attention of potential customers

- Bus and metro stations: to touch the target customer on his way home. In designated bus shelters, double wall posters have been used, a first in the Chinese market

- On bus and metro LCD screens: two TVCs have been launched in eight cities

It is very important for a brand such as IKEA to have its unique strength, which can not only differentiate IKEA from other brands, but also can make this brand as the leader of indoor furniture market. Meanwhile, the centralisation is quite dangerous for a brand, if tomorrow the DIY is out of date, it is too difficult and too late to build another strength for IKEA to survive in the market. Besides, the kitchen line products can help IKEA to reinforce its brand though its Swedish lifestyle design in another angle.

DIY alone does not constitute a point of differentiation. By putting forth different product ranges such as kitchenwares and appliances that still rely on the original brand promise (affordable design with a Scandinavian twist), IKEA supports its core business and at the same time, can expand its brand image in a favourable manner.