IKEA | Lamp (Unböring campaign) | 2003
"If You Feel Bad for This Lamp, You're Crazy" / IKEA "Lamp"
In 2002, a lamp got thrown out onto the street. Sitting there in the rain, staring through a window at the shiny new lamp that replaced it, the whole scene was so pitiful, so painfully human, that it tugged at anyone watching. Then a man with a Swedish accent stepped into frame and said one line that would end up carved into advertising history.
The problem
American consumers would spend freely on clothes and shoes, but when it came to furniture, they held on like it was 'till death do us part.' CP+B's job was to change that mindset and reposition furniture as fashion instead. In early 2002, IKEA switched agencies from Carmichael Lynch to CP+B, and this 60-second commercial became the first piece of their new "Unböring" campaign. Turning our sentimental attachment to furniture into comedy — that's the bold experiment that started here.
The insight
Jury chairman Dan Wieden once said, "Lamp was made on a tiny budget, but it's an incredibly powerful idea. It pokes at the attachment we feel toward objects simply because we've owned them for a long time." People unconsciously treat objects like they have feelings. This ad flips that instinct on its head — building an emotional connection in an instant, then gleefully tearing it down. That reversal is the whole core of the idea. What the man says in the rain is something consumers had secretly wanted someone to say out loud, but could never quite put into words themselves. Releasing people from guilt — that's really what this commercial was about.
The idea
The spot was made by Morton/Jankel/Zander and directed by Spike Jonze. The red table lamp was chosen because it "looked the most pathetic." A woman carries it out on her shoulder and leaves it out in the wind and rain, where it stares through a window at its shiny replacement, all set to a minimalist piano score. The man with the Swedish accent was played by an amateur, Jonas Fornander. Jonze said he wanted it to feel like "an IKEA employee had just walked straight out of the store and onto the sidewalk." Then comes the line that flips everything: "Many of you feel bad for this lamp. That is because you crazy. It has no feelings, and the new one is much better."
What happened
Sales rose 8%, and Lamp picked up a string of awards, including the Grand Clio and the Cannes Lions Grand Prix. Beating out Honda's "Cog," which had been the favorite to win, sent shockwaves through the industry. It was the eighth most-awarded ad campaign of 2003, and it also took gold at the London International Awards, the ANDY Awards, and the Association of Independent Commercial Producers Awards. Dan Wieden, from a rival agency, praised it, saying "Lamp shoots the audience right between the eyes." It aired during Frasier, Friends, and the 2002 World Series, and was written about extensively by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Afterthought
16 years later, IKEA Canada made a kind of sequel to this ad. This time, a girl picks the lamp up, and the same Jonas Fornander says, "If you're happy about this lamp, you're not crazy. Reuse is so much better." Times change, and so do our values. But in that one moment in 2002, Lamp showed, about as perfectly as possible, what advertising can do when it builds up your feelings just to knock them down. Slate criticized it, saying "IKEA managed to link landfill waste with slavish trend-following all in one ad." Even so, I still love this commercial. Because there just aren't many ads this funny and this honest at the same time.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2003
