Why IKEA is going viral despite being a decade late to the Harlem Shake

IKEA is going old school, bringing back trends from a decade ago as it revamps its loyalty programme, IKEA Family. While the points-based rewards programme might be nothing new to most of us in the industry, IKEA is sticking to the belief "better late than never".

To promote this campaign, IKEA has gotten its employees taking on the Harlem Shake, a trend that went viral in 2013 where groups of people dance to the song Harlem Shake; the Mannequin Challenge where participants stand like statues in a mannequin-like pose; and the Bottle Flip from 2016 where folks threw bottles up in the air in a bid to get it to stand upright.

In conversations with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, many industry professionals lauded the move by IKEA, as nostalgia marketing is a powerful tool for brands to connect with their audience.

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“IKEA’s approach of revisiting viral social media challenges from a decade ago is not just fun and familiar, it’s also deeply relatable for their target audience,” said Kim Chew, head of social media and community SEA at Mad Hat Asia.

Chew added that given this is an IKEA Family campaign, it’s safe to say the primary audience includes young families - many of whom are Millennials who likely participate in the trends themselves.

“Now, they’re revisiting those moments as adults(-ish) so it hits all the right nostalgic notes, while feeling fresh in a new context,” she said, adding:

The nostalgia campaign taps into a shared history. It's a wink at the past, and an invitation to pause and play and relive it.

On the topic of nostalgia, Sunny Johar, managing director of KRDS said that both Millennials and GenZ love nostalgia - especially as the world continues to disrupt and evolve at an extremely fast pace due to technological innovations.

“As suggested by sociologist Émile Durkheim, this term refers to the shared emotional energy and sense of connection people experience during communal activities. TikTok trends, such as viral dances or memes, create a sense of togetherness and collective identity, even among strangers,” she explained.

As such, sometimes, trends can even become a form of flashbulb memories and temporal anchoring, where people associate these trends as cultural markers for that time period. Participating in or witnessing a viral trend can serve as a cultural marker that becomes a “flashbulb memory” of that time, such as dalgona coffee marking the pandemic.

“Therefore, by evoking past trends, IKEA managed to achieve a deep emotional resonance amongst their core audience and drive home their 'late to the party' messaging,” said Johar. Additionally, it is also key to remember that consumers always appreciate a brand that is authentic and self-aware, even self-deprecating in acknowledgement of product or offering improvement.

“IKEA is a great example of a standout brand personality online - and by acknowledging this 'late to the party' move in a classically IKEA way, it minimised frustration from customers that have already spent thousands of dollars with nothing to show for it,” Johar added.

"When we work with brands at VaynerMedia, our focus is on the larger cultural moments relevant to their audience cohorts, native to the platforms that hold attention versus just chasing trends," said Shrey Khetarpal, head of consulting, VaynerMedia APAC.

So whether it's nostalgia or relationships or family and friends, brands need to see what's relevant to their audience and where they have the right to play

“When we put consumers and their emotions at the heart of what we make, it results in relevant creative that resonates with more and more people,” he added. 

Jude Foo, FM of Nine:TwentyEight added that another reason for its success could be because of the transient nature of social content, which means that a whole generation of social users never caught the first wave. “There will be a mix of people watching them due to nostalgia, and curiosity. Lastly, I think it comes down to the fact that the content itself was done well,” he added.

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