Cash, card or time? The possible payment methods offered by Ikea Dubai allow the customer to purchase even through the minutes spent by car to reach one of the locations of the Swedish company, usually located outside the city.

The idea, used in Jebel Ali’s shop, comes from the Memac Ogilvy agency: through the Google Maps Timeline app, the time of travel becomes a payment method like any other. So to buy a Billy bookshop you can pay in 1 hour and 55 minutes; with the remaining 5 minutes you buy a hot dog. A strategy that is an incentive for long-distance travel and that builds customer loyalty. 

So, on the one hand, the news seems to be a paradox compared to that of the new green shop without parking in Vienna. On the other hand, Ikea takes a step forward in the “dematerialization” of the brand, which no longer proposes itself as the revolutionary protagonist of the democratization of furniture, but as an interpreter of new needs, always ready to rethink and redesign the consumer experience in this new millennium. Obviously, it remains to be assessed how much all this is necessary and how much, instead, will disappear together with other boutade launched in the vacuum by the marketing offices of multinationals.

Part of the communication strategy is the recent campaign of Ikea Belgium linked to Instagram that invites to a contest to win a limited edition object: just place the Müpolash, this is the name of the product, in your room through augmented reality. Mash-up of the four most shared objects on the social media – mug, pot, lamp and shelf - the Müpolash is according to the company the most instagrammable object ever. It is on show at the Design Museum Gent until the end of February.

Ikea, using a variety of different tools – online, offline, traditional, including urban and social campaigns – is becoming a major content producer. 

Opening picture: Sesto fiorentino, Ikea. Author Sailko. Source Wikipedia