Nothing new about parodies

Nowadays, storytelling is becoming a successful phenomenon and its gaining popularity in regards to companies and their marketing strategies. It is defined as the 'art' of telling stories and for the world of advertising and media it is becoming one of the most powerful tools of persuasion. Companies less look for ways to get people's attention through the use of emotional advertising, but aspire to actually sell products by communicating narrativized products representations to their customers. A few of the most popular and effective examples of brand storytelling are Adidas' commercial "Impossible is Nothing" or a variety of Nike’s “Just Do It" commercials. These advertisements are still remembered years after their first release. Thus these commercials are based in the concept of storytelling. Even though it might not first appear so, commercials are using a certain type of standardization in their commercials. One of these examples is the IKEA “BookBook” parody of Apple’s iPad; it might seem as though this was a different idea but perhaps it is less unique than originally thought.

Before we can dive into the world of commercial and storytelling it is necessary to introduce the concepts used in this blogpost. Let start with the notion of 'standardization', a concept introduced by German sociologist Theodor Adorno in the 1920s. Adorno gave shape to a Fordist conception of culture production, in which the fundamental trait of the creative industries was standardization. Whereby the same dynamics of fabrication, distribution, commercialization and production of any other products could be also applied to the symbolic goods of the culture industry. However, according to Adorno, this goods and services were able to maintain their individuality.

This is due to the strategy of 'pseudo-individuality'; which is a specific characteristic that can be attributed to cultural products. In the long haul, the creative individuality influenced other industries and this process became a double operation of 'thingification of media' and 'mediation of thing', according to Scott Lash and Celia Lury. On the one hand symbol media products are merchandised and transformed into things, objects or places; whereas on the other hand global brands with material products in the physical world acquire a communicative function and are advertised thoughts stories and emotions.[1] 

IKEA’s commercials are a clear example of ‘thingification of media’, because the company makes use of brand storytelling and tries to appeal to the consumer’s emotions and feelings in order to buy their products. However, IKEA changed its commercial outings last year, by releasing an advertisement different than any other IKEA commercial. In order to declare originality and characterize its product in a contradistinctive way, it applied to the commercials the strategy of pseudo-individuality by employing the parody as its unique trait. To be specific, IKEA Singapore and Kindling Digital won over the internet by parodying Apple's products announcement with their own promotion of the 2015 IKEA catalogue, a.k.a. BookBook. In the commercial you can see IKEA’s Chief Design Guru Jörgen Eghammer saying “It’s not a digital book or an e-book. It’s a BookBook. You can actually feel the pages move as you swipe!", this means that IKEA was directly referencing to the iPad commercial made by Apple.

At the beginning of this year, IKEA tried to emulate the success of the first campaign with a new parody-commercial titled "Improve Your Private Life". This time IKEA let Apple off the hook, instead parodying self-help programs with Shelf Help Guru Fille Güte who helped one unhappy couple find happiness by organizing their private lives (and their home space). The video starts in the bedroom when the woman tells her husband, “I just wish you knew what to do with your junk,” as the camera pans down to his crotch, with his clothes and papers lying around him on the floor. In another sequence, we find the couple in the bathroom and, as the man steps on a sharp toy and screams “Frack!” the IKEA mirror of the same name suddenly appears, along with other suggested improvements for organizing the room with IKEA products. The video ends with Güte's advice "Always believe in your shelf."[2] The video became very popular and generated more than 16 millions view. But why was it received so well and what was the trait that set it apart from all the other commercials?

Even though it might seem as though IKEA had taken a new path; parodies are nothing new. According to Raúl Rodriguez-Ferrandiz, media convergence led to the conception of cultural products as "just one more entertainment opportunity among many others, and not necessarily as part of an intellectual or aesthetically superior range", therefore offering indiscriminate enjoyment. As a consequence the user is not happy by only consuming whereby the consumer is standing on the sideline. Companies are adapting to this emotion, since they give an active role to the consumer, by intervening in, manipulating and finishing the product. Besides commercials, examples can also be found in mixing music tracks, editing video clips of movies or tv-shows, and of course the use of parodies.[3]

Even though we can find billions of those videos and parodies made by the so-called ‘prosumers’, it is not often we see a huge company such as IKEA making use of these techniques, and it is interesting to see it conforming to standardization. The way parodies are being commercialized might perhaps seem as though it is new, however parodies and the active role of the consumer are gaining popularity and are becoming widespread. More important is the use IKEA makes of irony and parody to send a message. In a world where technology is prevailing over paper, the company's aim is to give the same importance to their catalogue, as a real world, an unique experience to live to the fullest. Once again it all comes back to storytelling and the power of communication. 

Initials:

A.D.

E.T.

J.M.D.O.M.

M.v.d.V

M.v.R

Tweet: Storytelling is crucial in commercials, but it can have different forms. However, parodies are just another form of standardization #IKEA

[1] Rodríguez-Ferrándiz, R. (2013) 'Culture Industries in a Postindustrial Age: Entertainment, Leisure, Creativity, Design', in: Critical Studies in Media Communication. p. 329-330

[2] Walgrove, A. (2015) IKEA Goes Viral By Helping You ‘Figure Out How to Use Your Junk.
https://contently.com/strategist/2015/03/17/can-ikea-replicate-the-success-of-its-viral-apple-parody/

[3] Rodríguez-Ferrándiz, R. (2013) 'Culture Industries in a Postindustrial Age: Entertainment, Leisure, Creativity, Design', in: Critical Studies in Media Communication. p. 333-334