According to the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, IKEA in Germany has been forced by the head offices of the furniture giant in Sweden to remove three TV spots from the nationwide german TV stations RTL and Sat1.
The spots promote "Crazy Midsummer Prices" and depict the German perception of "traditional" Swedish activities on the celebration of the longest day of the year. We get to see drunken Swedes in traditional costumes dancing, fighting and generally partying out of control. The German IKEA also has a special website for the campaign.
After having lived and worked in Germany for two and half years now, I definitely recognize the stereotypes, and to be absolutely honest, I just can't see what the problem is… ;o)
The spots can be viewed here:
"Morning"
"Eating"
"Party"
Update 25 June: The frog-film Ikea Germany made to replace these.
Update again those links to Aftonbladet are long gone, here's one of the films. Directors cut, no less.
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I honestly don't see the problem with those ads, unless it's one of those "I can call my family nuts but you can't!" sort of things. The general idea, a pisstake of Swedish myths filmed in that way (me and Researcher are speculating that it might be Petterson &
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PermalinkI’ll keep my eyes and ears open, but you’re right in the respect that during the last year or so the IKEA stuff that hasn’t been adapted from St. Luke’s London has been done by Grabarz & Partner Hamburg.
Oddly enough, the film that’s being run now as a replacement is from King Stockholm (with Traktor doing the production). I can imagine that this was commissioned by the people in Älmhult as a last-minute fix to the perceived problem of "brand inconsistency".
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PermalinkUpdate: According to the YouTube user jennabush69 the 3 original "Midsommar Wahnsinns Preise" films were also produced by Traktor. As proof, jennabush69 has published a 3:08 long "director's cut" of the film with English charts here.
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