Honey - where are my ideas?

Ikea rocked the advertising world all the way from Canada to Denmark. Must've been all that jumping on the beds!

Epilogue

11th of August 2005.
Back when I wrote this, oh so long ago, I was armed with my scrap book, my sticky ad-brain and thought with the loose connection of a similar ad being shown in the small ad-land of Denmark that hey presto, I had a fun Badland conspiracy going! So I hammered out the story, posted it and off it went on teh intarwebz.

I emailed around to track down the "honey where are my socks" ad, that I was certain had been made at Roche Macaulay & Partners, but all I could dig up were some credit-less screenshots and a few suggestions that it might have been made at Deutche. The reason I was so stuck on the idea of Roche was because I believed the ad was shown by Geoffrey Roche at a mini-seminar thing back in 1995 in Copenhagen, and my trusty scrap book told me so.

Funny thing about this site is though, that people actually read it. Years later even. So a few people have already been helpful and emailed in the correction of credits for that first Ikea ad and now even Geoffrey Roche rung my cellphone. "Hey, it's Geoffrey Roche" he opens with, to which I peep "oh my gawd, hiiii" like some valley girl. Gag me. I need to stop sounding like that.

He remembers the showing of them ads over in Denmark too - ten years ago now. Why shouldn't he, after all, he was there. But, he says, "that's not the ikea ad I showed." - "It wasn't?" I say, "but.. it says "ikea jumping on bed" in my scrap book" I protest, as my scrap book is the only other witness, "together with that burrito in the microwave ad, where 'everything is better with music!'" I point with a stern finger to my know-it-all scrap book, as if anyone could see that over the phone.

"Yeah, we showed the burrito ad. And we showed the kids jumping on bed Ikea ad." replies Mr Roche dead-pan.

Key word kids. The Ikea ad flashes back in my head and I nearly smack my own forehead in a "do'h" moment. Picture this; two kids in a room jumping on their beds. One crashes through his bed. Tag: "Need a new twin?" Not the same ad at all, and it does explain the "ikea jumping on bed" scribble in my scrap book. I misremembered!

So fine, there's no Copenhagen connection between these two ads, apart from the fact that I've seen them both. Possibly when I was consuming countless Ikea ads around Roche's visit when I worked at Saatchi KBH back in '95. I must've seen hundreds of Ikea related reels at that time. So, please toss the fun conspiracy theory that Miele must have seen the first Ikea ad in a small seminar in Copenhagen out the window and just see the twin idea ads. The twin ideas could be caused by brain syncs, aliens, synchronicity, coincidence, ad award book regurgitation, something in the water and all our usual suspects in Badland, take your pick. ;)

Yet another 'frame-by-frame' rip-off of a commercial (like the Good Guys vs Preem we showed earlier) has happened, and it took some tracking down, but thanks to Wes at commando the original Ikea screenshots at least found their way here. (Way back when we checked with someone at Roche Macaulay and Partners they said that Deutche had made the orginal Ikea ad, but Deutche didn't respond to emails at all, so...)

Now an adlist member has spoken to Mr. Macaulay, "Just wanted to let you know that the IKEA ad (vs. Miele) on your site was in fact done by Deutsche New York and not by Roche Macaulay & Partners Toronto. I work with Mr. Macaulay and I asked him about it over lunch a few weeks ago." Well there ya go!

Both are with SPX and voiceovers kinda complicated commercials so I'll let you see them one at a time.

Open on three quality testers. A female with a clipboard looks on as a male tester opens and closes a drawer. Each time he does, a silent man in the background pulls the cord on a counter that rings a bell as it records each repetition.

MALE TESTER: Honey, where are my socks?
SFX: BELL
MALE TESTER: Honey, where are my socks?
SFX: BELL
MALE TESTER: Honey, where are my socks?
VO ANNCR: At Ikea, we put our furniture through three years of everyday
home use in just one week.

Cut to male tester getting on and off a sofa. Again, and throughout the spot, the bell ringing counter, keeps pace with his actions.

FEMALE TESTER: Have a seat.
SFX: BELL
FEMALE TESTER: Have a seat.
SFX: BELL
FEMALE TESTER: Have a seat.
SFX: BELL
VO ANNCR: We call our quality testing "möbelfakta." Each item has to pass the test....

The male tester next open and closes a cabinet. MALE TESTER: Mom, can
I have a cookie?
SFX: BELL
MALE TESTER: Mom, can I have a cookie?
SFX: BELL
MALE TESTER: Mom, can I have a cookie?

TITLE CARD: IKEA LOGO VO ANNCR: Ikea, Swedish for common sense.

In the closing scene, the male tester is jumping up and down on a bed. ...Like a kid.
FEMALE TESTER: You're gonna get hurt.
SFX: BELL
FEMALE TESTER: You're gonna get hurt.
SFX: BELL
FEMALE TESTER: You're gonna get hurt.
SFX: BELL

Hehhehehe...It's really funny when you see it, and the first time I saw this commercial was probably in back in 95.
It has also been spotted on various shows like 'Carrots Commercial Breakdown' and the likes, not to mentions a bunch of award reels. I'm not sure when this were made, or for that matter, where..(Deutche?) .

...anyway... Our Next Victim ;

Open on a mother and her son. The son climbs up on the washing machine and the mother says;

-"How many times do I have to tell you,you won't get any more pocketmoney."

The son jumps off the counter, via the washingmachine and replies:"-I'll just ask dad then."

Here's the catch, all the do is turn around and repeat this little conversation (and the climbing of the washingmachine) Three times. The camera does not move at all. Counter in the left hand corner counts 313-314-315 etc.

A close up on the son's feet reveal 'dummytester' symbols as found on crash-test dummies

.

TITLE CARD: Miele.

Everything else is a compromise..

This one was made for Ogilvy and Mather Copenhagen by Moland Film, (and must have been a compromise.....heh) but lets not blame the film company for the creative's apparent lack of original ideas. Do I think it was ripped off? Maybe. I thought yes.
It is the kind of idea that might pop up in everyone's head, - who hasn't thought of crash test dummies?

The Danish Miele commercial was shortlisted at the
Epica awards 1998, at least four years after the original ikea ad was made. Unfortunately I do not know the names of all of the creative's involved in both of these commercials, but if you do know, you can comment at the bottom.

It's interesting to see the different styling and how different they were directed. (The poor quality of the Miele gifs is what the film actually looks like, it's an attempt to make it look like 'old' footage.)

I'm biasad, from the MTV generation and all that, so I must say that I do prefer the quick-cut a lot of funny stuff happening Ikea ad to the one-shot 'look the kid repeats himself' Miele ad, the latter I find a tad slow for just one gag. Your milage may vary.

The entire Miele commercial campaign consists of these kinds of "tests", done by the kid, by the dad..etc....At least the Ikea campaign had the sense to come up with another idea to fit the proposition and not just another version of the same idea for their TV campaign. ;)

(See the Twin Benches to see what I mean on another campaign..)

comment away!

------------------------------- update! ---------------------------->

A visitor lets us know that IKEA tv spot in the Badland section was definitely done at Goldberg Marchdesano in D.C. Joe Moscati was the Art Director...he was at the One Show to accept award on behalf of Goldberg, and has the pencil with his name on it to prove it. Wow, this makes the 'original' ad an olden goldie, 1988 is a long time ago for a commercial.