IKEA Sheffield
At my time in LIDA, we were asked to help launch IKEA's new store in Sheffield. This involved a series of projects to draw attention to the new store by doing messaging throughout the community. This included a barbecue in the city's main park where we gave away free sporks, and free coffees from a coffee cart (the Swedes call coffee time 'Fika'). We even dressed up the waiting lounge at the local railway station with IKEA furniture to make it tad more comfortable.
As a writer, the most fun part of this assignment was to write poetry to go on Sheffield's tram network (the line for which of course went by the new store).
Free sporks! Who could resist? Many didn't.
In Sweden, fika is a general chill time with a nice cup of coffee and a pastry. For the good people of Sheffield, this was all free to mark the store launch.
Station waiting rooms are notoriously drab, and Sheffield's was no different. So we decked it out in comfy IKEA fabrics and furnishings.
Inspired by London's Poems on the Underground, we did some poems for Sheffield's trams.
The point of these poems was to push people to join IKEA Family, the company's loyalty programme. Where some of the bonuses include free coffee, cheaper prices and product insurance.
