IKEA Turned the Metro Station into a Showroom

IKEA launched an unusual advertising activity to support the opening of the first Parisian store in the center of the city.

Swedish retailer designed La Madeleine metro station closest to the new retail space in the showroom. On the walls of the Paris metro station, about 1,500 colorful items were available, available in IKEA stores, ranging from chairs and armchairs that you can use while waiting for the train to soft toys and decor items. Thus, IKEA designers managed to transform a dull subway into a real bazaar, where bright things coexist with unpronounceable names of goods in Scandinavian languages.

In early May, the first IKEA concept store opened in Paris, specially adapted for work in the city center. The area of ​the two-story store in the La Madeleine quarter is about 5,000 square meters, which is four times smaller than the standard IKEA store opens outside the city.

As part of the new strategy, to get closer to customers, the Swedish retailer plans to open similar retail spaces, more like showrooms, around the world. These stores represent a limited range and are guided by the fact that buyers will get acquainted with the products and make orders with home delivery. According to the company’s estimates, about $ 400 million will be invested in the launch of stores in the city center. In New York, in Manhattan, the opening of the IKEA store of urban format was also held earlier this month.​

Unusual advertising of a new store in the metro is not the first such practice of IKEA. In 2012, the company presented to visitors of the Paris station a whole apartment of 54 square meters, fully furnished with its furniture and accessories. As part of an advertising campaign, five volunteers lived in an improvised IKEA apartment for five days.