Ikea and Chupa Chups unveiled a meatball flavour lollipop on April 1. Everyone assumed it was an April Fool’s joke, but a few weeks later they announced it was real.
And the question on everyone lips was why?
Well, Retail Gazette sat down with Ikea’s chief marketing officer Vincenzo Riili and Chupa Chups’ global marketing manager Martin Tassara Hofling to find out.
Vincenzo Riili, Ikea’s chief marketing officer responded to consumers confusion saying: “Well, why not?”.
He added: “We want to celebrate our IKEA meatball. And this year, its our 40th anniversary since we launched.”
“This year, we have a commercial focus on cooking and eating, so we wanted to start there. ”
The firm brainstormed multiple ideas before landing on the meatball flavoured lollipop. Ikea wanted to do something that was “playful, surprising and a little bit outside the comfort zone”.
Tassara Hofling adds that from Chupa Chups point of view the collab just felt like a “natural fit”. Chupa Chups is all about “forever fun”. The brand is all about creating “joyful moments of connection” and enjoying day to day moments.
He says: “We know that the unexpected methods, such as collaborations, really help create spark conversations on social media and drive our media, which is something that is a key pillar of our strategy.”
Rili highlights that it was always Ikea’s intention to bring the lollipop to life. They chose April Fool’s to launch the idea to create conversations with shoppers.
The brand first tested the product in Milan and then planned a release in June, where shoppers can visit Ikea stores and try it for themselves.
Tassara Hofling explains: “The moment they knew about it, everybody wanted to try it. We always knew it was something that would intrigue people and make them curious.”
“And then, by design, we created the campaign in a way that could perfectly with April Fool’s because people would guess and say, Well is it true?”
Chupa Chups aims for the lollipop to be for anyone who wants to “be delighted by something unexpected and delightful”.
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Riili explains that consumer reaction to the idea has been overwhelming positive. He explains that people “really embrace the idea of something unexpected”, they want something that is light-hearted and playful.
Tassara Hofling says: “We knew that people would be questioning, and some people would be asking, wow, I really want to get my hands on one of these. And then we were already cooking up the opportunity for them to actually get their hands on it. So let’s say the campaign was designed for social end to end.”
He adds that the brands knew the project would spark conversation but the campaign has gone beyond its initial expectations.
The campaign has over 25 million impressions across all social media platforms and is the best performing post in impressions on the Ingka Group’s LinkedIn page with almost 250,000 impressions.
Rili highlighted that the reveal story has visibility in 106 countries, a figure which Ikea thought was “incredible” as the activation is only running in 24 markets.
Chupa Chups was also able to see the reaction of customers first hand at Ikea’s space for Milano Design Week. They wanted to strike the right balance, to make something that brings together the savoury aspects of the meatball combined with the sweet lingonberry and they found customers seemed to really like the product.
Hofling says: “In most cases, people delighted to try it- Wow, that’s nice. It’s really like a meatball [was a common response].
“And so overall, we’re really happy with with the results we have seen so far.”
Rili also pointed out that the queue for the product at the Milan show highlighted the amount of interest
consumers had in the product.
Another metric Tassara Hofling highlights is what he terms the “reality element”- the amount of creators and influencers who after visiting Milano Design Week posted about the product.
For Rili, the campaign plays into the brands heritage and is part of “a wider strategy to make IKEA more relevant and more visible every day”.
He says: “It contributes to our long term ambition to strengthen the emotional connection with the IKEA brand.”
For Tassara Hoflin, the lollipop “cuts the clutter by really connecting meaningfully with the audience and bringing unexpected flavours and expected experiences.”
Rili believes that partnerships such as this one can give brands the opportunity to create something consumers cannot expect and something that money can’t buy.
He says: “Generally speaking we are going to be looking for new ideas. If something comes up, I will be very happy to deal with that.”
Tassara Hofling said: “The collaborations is still a work in progress.”
He highlights that the lollipop brand would be eager to look at April Fool’s as a “cultural moment.”
He says: “We’re definitely excited about everything we learned from this campaign, and thinking about ways to work together with IKEA and other partners in the future.”
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