IKEA | Interactive Catalogue | 2010
Hold the paper catalogue up to your room, and furniture sprouted out of it / IKEA "Interactive Catalogue"
In 2010, just a few years after the iPhone came out, IKEA had already built an app that let you place furniture in your room through your camera. This was years before AR became a trend.
The problem
IKEA was the king of retail, delivering a thick paper catalogue to homes every year. But flipping through a catalogue and trying to imagine how furniture would look in your room always left a gap between imagination and reality. It was a time when something was needed to close that gap.
The insight
The app was split into two main functions: one let you place furniture in your own room, and the other helped you find your personal style by answering a few simple questions. It wasn't just about choosing furniture from a catalogue, but bringing the idea of trying it out into the catalogue itself.
The idea
Released as a free iPhone app, it let you pick from more than 40 pieces of furniture featured in the catalogue and place them in your own room through your phone's camera. You could resize and move the furniture around, and even take a photo once you found an arrangement you liked.
What happened
Within a week of launch, it reached number two on the Apple App Store download rankings, and went on to pass 200,000 total downloads. It won a Gold Lion in the Cyber category at Cannes Lions that year.
Afterthought
Back when the iPhone had barely been out any time at all, a small mobile-focused company in Spain managed to fit IKEA's heavy paper catalogue into your pocket. AR apps that let you place furniture in a room aren't unusual these days, but it's worth remembering that there were people who did the now-ordinary thing before it became ordinary.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2010
