IKEA did it again.  For their most recent US store opening in Tampa Bay, Florida IKEA placed large bottles containing select pieces of furniture on the St. Petersburg pier to promote its new store location.  You can see images taken by MediaPost here and here.

Although stunt marketing might be considered corny, if it’s done right, it can be a more effective brand building tactic.  For IKEA, the continuous usage of stunts has helped it to associate its brand with creativity, cost consciousness, and a quirky personality.  These efforts have allowed IKEA to clearly differentiate itself from its competitors.  What other furniture store would think of doing something like this?

One of the additional benefits of stunt advertising is the extended PR and word of mouth effect that can be generated from one event, like this blog posting.

IKEA does what so many brands strive to do; get people to interact with its products in a non-retail environment.  IKEA did that a few years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark where it furnished bus shelters with IKEA furniture so they looked like miniature IKEA stores.  The government objected to this an eventually had IKEA pull out the furniture but by then IKEA got what it was looking for, huge impact.  So IKEA decided to do something similar for Fashion Week in New York.

But stunt marketing, like other word of mouth campaigns, can backfire on you if not properly thought through, as it did for the Head of the Cartoon Network.

Do you know any other brands that have launched similar successful stunt marketing events or campaigns?

Tags: Brand Building, brand management, Stunt Marketing, Word of Mouth