TBWA Singapore’s first Ikea campaign builds on ‘Make Home Count’ theme

Looks a bit… bland. Hopefully it’s just them warming up.

Ads just like their furniture.
Utterly forgettable and devoid of character.

Good argument. Proper ad.

Where’s the hygge? (ok I know that’s danish but…)
This looks like the ad equivalent of a bone with all the marrow sucked out. Terrible art direction and some of the most patronising copy ever.

Major yawn. Especially from an agency all about disruption for a brand name that has so much character.

This is a great example of a small idea pushed as far as it could possibly go. The strategy is a one off headline at best.

The art direction is terrible. Self-indulgent really, not to mention it is nearly impossible to read at the bus stop it anywhere else.

Client was clearly misguided. Nobody wants to work this hard to read a headline. Looks like a planner write it anyway.

Below average work. Why TBWA?

Nice work…lifting the sales proposition directly from the brief
and typesetting it in the most unimaginative way possible.

Patently obvious that the 3rd and 4th line are redundant.
Should have just kept the first two lines…and end with make home count. That hotel bit was gratuitous nonsense. Of course you need a strong creative director to make these calls….looks like another planner driven execution.

One big yawn. Bland and boring just like [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].

Boring facts we don’t already know. Nothing like those ikea ads from the UK that we’ve seen. So awful.

BBH lost to this garbage?? At least the ‘memory girl’ ad was something different, whether you personally liked it or not.
This ad is far from any disruption TBWA keeps shouting about. Interesting that there is no quote from Ara or anyone else at tbwa for that matter.

Ikea is [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] that you buy knowing full well that it won’t [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. So the suggestion that Ikea can give you home that’s nicer looking than a hotel you splurge on for the annual vacation is quite a stretch. The film has been panned on social media and nobody believes them.

Yet another example where an agency’s talk does not match the output. Based on the [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] output of the agency for years and years, one can only wonder how they got so big. I guess many of the big players shrunk in size due to [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] while these guys kept focusing on real work and growing the bottom line. For this, they deserve credit. Disruptive creative work?..sorry, not by a long shot.

The real PR twist here is that TBWA has just overstretched itself so much that it is a victim of it’s own success. Seeing the work in the Cinema assures me that IKEA just did its best to blend in. Terrible storytelling with no redeeming entertainment value at all. (You could have at least purchases some great music.) IKEA had its brand in good hands at BBH. They got it. They would never have dug themselves into such a hole. People don’t want a list of facts. People don’t want to be insulted about their own nests at home. People already know their home counts. And when they do travel, hotel furniture is rarely a comparison to your own bed. Making home count is insulting. What an arrogant thing for IKEA to hang its new campaign on. It is so obvious that the planning department turned their pitch deck into TBWA’s new creative campaign.

From the people who gave you Manulife Insurance for greek statues
(and Singaporeans).

It was a greek tragedy indeed

The Manulife marketing chief [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].
So wonder what lies ahead for the agency.
Possibly more greek tragedy.

Its a refreshing take. A proper ad. Really. With all the hate messages I wonder who wrote them? lol.

Refreshing? Where you from mate

It’s refreshing in the sense that it is not a shameless, selfish vehicle to promote the agency’s so called creative chops but rather a real sales message that attempts to give the audience another reason to buy. It’s how advertising works in the real world. You oughta try it sometime.

Aww don’t take it personally. It’s advertising. And this is Mumbrella, where petty creatives from every agency stand united when it comes to criticising mediocre work, which is exactly what this ad is.

If anyone studied the Ikea business model, their global procurement policy is based on lowest price.
No agency ever made decent margins on this account.

Well, that was pretty forgettable.

The brief to the agency seems pretty clear

“People will splash out on 100 other things before spending it on the place where they spend most of their time, we need to change that”

Unfortunately the advertising itself is a pretty literal visualisation of the brief and (worse) is devoid of the any of the character, spark or sense of fun for which Ikea is famous. And losing the Ikea brand from Ikea advertising is pretty much unforgivable.

Maybe it’s an account bedding in, maybe this was late due to the pitch and rushed out of the door in a hurry to meet a deadline, maybe the next thing will be better – I hope so – for the client and for the industry.

Singapore needs to be doing great work on great clients and over the years Ikea have shown themselves to be a client that buys good ideas.

So while this isn’t a disaster it proves to be something worse – totally forgettable. As is much of the agency’s work. Alarm bells must be ringing.

An agency CEO raiding his ex agency to recruit creatives is not a bad thing…although it helps to be discerning.

And lets be honest, this is the beginning of a conversation about an observation, that could lead to an insight.

You spend more time at home than anywhere else … and … and … and ????

This is what happens when adults leve the room and building … and industry.

Is this what to expect from an AI campaign? Just a list of sad facts for consumers to ponder. Agree with one of the esteemed trolls above, it is very forgettable. I only noticed it because of the trade article here on Mumbrella. I vaguely remember seeing it in the Cinema. It was rumoured that this business was won because TBWA hired some BBH creative director and followed the bloke over. If this is indeed true, it just goes to prove that one ex-BBH creative is hardly the entire BBH team, which includes a lot of brilliant people TBWA produced the expected ad campaign, they are famous for it, and clients here love it. But no, judging from the Manulife Statues campaign and this recent IKEA campaign need to rethink their leadership I suspect.

nobody has gone over, the pitch was pretty straight, I just wonder whether this was the pitch winning work

Creative Director, Peter Callaghan joined TBWA and won the business jack. [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. Nobody ever gets fired for hiring TBWA remember. They don’t get promoted either but they keep their jobs. Moving the business from BBH to TBWA was a dumb move judging from this creative work. So no, it was not as straight as you like to believe.

A quick check on your fake news before using it to troll. Firstly, it is a new Ikea CMO with no loyalties. Secondly, if TBWA were indeed poaching talent which resulted in the win, don’t think BBH would’ve been so graceful with the handover.. (https://www.marketing-interactive.com/bbh-bids-goodbye-to-long-time-client-ikea-in-a-classy-facebook-post/)

I’ve seen better designed powerpoint slides.

Have we all forgotten how to do this job?

Forgotten?

Can you name a time when Singapore was doing great ads?

(Genuinely)

Back in the 90s when IKEA actually did great ads.
At a time when there were no planners, pitch consultants or global rules.
(Honestly)

Do you have a link to those Halcyon ads of yesteryear?

The best ads I’ve seen on IKEA have come out of agencies that are strong on planning (BBH, Mother, St Lukes)

Compare what TBWA Singapore did for Ikea in November with what Mother did in the same month

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0EKS2YfLc0

and tell me that the problem is Planning / Pitch Consultants / Client

The issue is [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].

Just because there’s no ‘link’, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
There was a time before the internet where the repository of great ads were found in these things called award books (you may find it in places called ‘libraries’ under the ‘non-fiction’ section) and subscriber-compilations for World’s Best Ads in u-matics (google it).
It WAS also the time before planners and pitch consultants.
Back then, clients were not an option like today.
Real clients weren’t the obstacle to great work.
They were the deep-pocket target to get great work sold, executed and run on a nice media budget.
The outcome was good for everyone.
Clients believed in agencies.
Agencies had the money to pay bonuses.
Good creatives got famous.
Some individuals got rich.
Then someone decided to kill the goose by scamming.
And here we are.

All I asked for was evidence of this former excellence.

I agree it’s hard to feel inspired by what passes off for advertising these days.
So here’s more than one from the days when local ads were legit, awards were rarely given and planners were not ‘a thing’.

Payout-Spencer & Friends
Mercedes Benz–Spencer & Friends, BBDO, Monsoon, Bateys
HSBC-The Ball Partnership
SIA-Bateys
Lexus-DY&R
Citibank-JWT, DY&R
Metro-Jwt
Mitsubishi-The Ball Partnership
SPH-The Ball Partnership
IKEA-DY&R, Lowe
Toyota-The Ball Partnership, DY&R, Saatchi & Saatchi
HP-Saatchi & Saatchi
Epson-DY&R
Singapore Navy-Saatchi & Saatchi
Pidemco-Saatchi & Saatchi
EDB-Saatchi & Saatchi
Singapore Zoo-Bateys
Raffles Hotel-Bateys
Parker Pen-The Ball Partnership
Chivas Regal-The Ball Partnership
ABN-The Ball Partnership
OCBC-Bateys
UOB-Bateys
Brands Essence of Chicken-Ogilvy
Macdonalds-Leo Burnett,10AM
Ermenegildo Zegna-Ogilvy
Tradewinds-Ogilvy
Yeo’s Grass Jelly-The Ball Partnership
DBS Black Card-Ogilvy
Tiger Beer-Bateys, Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO
ABC Extra Stout-Bateys,BBDO
Tangs Studio-Bateys
Philips-Ogilvy
Guiness-Ogilvy
Heineken-Bates
Nokia-Bates
Jasons-Ogilvy
RSAF-Ogilvy
BMW-Ogilvy
Shangri-La-Bateys
Pan Pacific Hotel-The Ball Partnership
Sony-Bateys, Y&R
Visa Gold-Bateys
STB-Bateys
British Airways-Saatchi & Saatchi, M&C Saatchi
etc etc
(It’s out there in decades of award annuals, if you want to find them.)

Hint:The pursuit of their location is worthy of their inspiration.

Agreed. Back when Ikea needed advertising because nobody know what it was.

Planning has been around since 1968

Longer than the modern Singapore Industry

Your complaint is probably with bad planning…

That said if this is your list of GREAT communication then you’ve been on planet mediocre for way too long

Not one had the impact of a Campaign for real beauty, BMW Films, Red Bull Stratos, Subservient Chicken, Get A Mac, Smart Cities, Whassup, Guiness Surfer, Not Happy Jan, Jr Hartley, VW Lemon, Color Like No Other, Blair Witch, A diamond is forever, Absolut Vodka, Smirnoff through the bottle, Got Milk, 1984, We Try Harder, Tide Super Bowl, Does she or doesn’t she, Fedex Fast Talker, The man in the Hathaway shirt, energizer bunny, nothing comes between me and my Calvins, Blood Normal, where’s the beef, snap, crackle and pop, Laundrette, Creek, Cadbury Gorilla, IBM Chaplin, You know when you’ve been tango’d or a host of others.

Singapore has punched below its (bantam) weight for decades. French and Droga lifted the standard for a while, then it crashed when they moved on.

I believe the question pertained to local examples.
Any student of advertising can list the usual legendary campaigns, a common distraction used by planners to project a modicum of expertise.
However total recall of acknowledged greats campaigns with a rear view mirror is no substitute for navigating a way forward when there’s a blank page or time block to be filled.
By the way, the function of planning was pioneered by Robin Wright of WCRS in the UK.
That’s planning with a capital P and as it should be.

Lowe Monsoon did a very nice TV ad for Ikea which won the Golden Gong at CCA….real work. It was about a two bit hoodlum being questioned by some mafia guys about something they wanted… but he couldn’t answer because his house was a real mess. Patrick Low and his gang at Y&R also did some very nice work for Ikea.

This is garbage compared to those examples Ive provided.

I hate to agree with IC on anything. But it is so true. TBWA drops ball hard. Nice one Ara.

Saw another example of this planner’s circle jerk campaign today.

YOU SPEND 1 HR COMMUTING.
AND 12 HRS AT HOME.

WHY BUY A CAR?
WHY NOT GET A BETTER HOME?

Do I even need to get into why this is so [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] and such a false premise?