“Love the sense of humor that fits the brand perfectly.” —juror Natalie Lam

“Since banner ads are unavoidable, why not allow them to have a real, meaningful purpose? And what’s better than serving up a real-world problem with an answer already baked in?” —juror Megan Meeker

Overview: Needing to grow bathroom sales, IKEA enlisted the help of Leo Burnett Toronto to convince Canadians that IKEA could make it easier to share the bathroom. Through an innovative tool on ikea.ca, users could air their bathroom woes directly with the very people who monopolize their toilet. Best of all, it would reach recipients when they least expect it: when they are browsing the web.

•Because bathroom renovations are such enormous undertakings—often requiring disruptive rip-out jobs, trips to specialty stores and hired help—people tend to drift toward home renovation stores rather than IKEA.
•Ikea.ca had 16,000 unique users from the #ShareTheBathroom tool.
•The project generated 1.5 million social impressions on Facebook and Twitter.

Comments by Tahir Ahmad, vice president, group planning director:
What do you think are the project’s core features? “The tool is simple: users create a message outlining their bathroom-mate’s bad habits that should be dropped like a wet towel and suggesting an IKEA product that could help solve the issue. Their message is then served in the form of an online banner to their bathroom cohabitants, who encounter this highly personal message in public, across whatever website they happened to be browsing via their home IP address. Users can also share their message via social media, extending awareness even further.”

Did you learn anything new during the process? “Our research uncovered one universal truth about all homes: the bathroom is the one room in the house that is both truly private and yet shared by everyone. And sharing means chaos—one person’s bad habits can destroy the delicate balance of the bathroom.”

What was the response? “From last year, there was a 12 percent increase in sales and a 34 percent increase in online sales.”