As someone who has worked in marketing for some time, whenever I see an ad for something, I tend to appreciate it more than I hate it. It’s like a fine art that has been lost on so many people.
One of my all-time favorite companies that knows how to do marketing right is IKEA, with the Book Book probably being their greatest masterpiece. Well this time around, however, what’s begun trending on the internet isn’t an ad, and it isn’t by IKEA, but it is definitely in the spirit of IKEA. It just once again proves that everything that comes out of IKEA is amazing.
These two guys decided to film an entire soap opera spoof in IKEA without letting them know about it
Image credits: Channel101
Back in 2009, Dave Seger and Paul Bartunek came up with a concept for a spoof soap opera. But this was no ordinary melodrama parody. They decided to shoot it entirely in an IKEA. They didn’t tell IKEA. IKEA never really noticed it until it aired.
Now, just stop and take a second to appreciate the fact that someone was so stealthy that they were able to pull off 7 episodes worth of filming, each running 5 minutes, with a full cast of actors inside IKEA during work hours when a bunch of other people are shopping around in the meantime. Completely undetected.
The comedy melodrama takes a jab at all of the cliche daytime soap operas
Image credits: Channel101
The show is called IKEA Heights and is a parody of generic daytime soap operas. It’s chock-full of everything that you would expect from a show of such nature: ridiculous romance, relentless drama, an amnesia plotline, and the occasional murder.
IKEA Heights was created as a web series for Channel 101, a monthly non-profit short film festival being held in Los Angeles and New York. It ran for 8 months and drew significant attention from the public, being rated at 7.9 stars on IMDB and being called brilliant, awesome, and beyond words by Entertainment Weekly.
IKEA wasn't too thrilled about it, but they didn't get too mad about it either as they admitted—it was funny
Image credits: Channel101
As for IKEA, they weren’t too happy about it, but they were also not that mad either. In an interview with MacLeans, IKEA’s spokesperson Madeleine Löwenborg-Frick said that they found it funny and they enjoyed the humor as IKEA themselves like to be tongue-in-cheek with their marketing. However, they would have appreciated much more if it was all done through the proper channels.
The web series was written by Dave Seger, Spencer Strauss, Paul Bartunek, and Tom Kauffman—the people responsible for Our Robocop Remake and Our Footloose Remake. If Kauffman is a familiar name to you, it should be, as he is also the writer for the over-the-top animated series Rick and Morty.
They have managed to film all seven 5-minute episodes without ever being noticed
Image credits: Channel101
IKEA Heights was directed by Dave Seger and starred Randall Park, Whitney Avalon, Matt Braunger, Tom Kauffman, Jess Lane, Wade Randolph, Abed Gheith, Delbert Dean Shoopman, and Dean Pelton. The show was shot entirely in the IKEA store of Burbank, California.
The show has been made available online on YouTube as well as on Vimeo, and it is very easily bingeable within 35 minutes between your Netflix or Hulu or HBO or any other streaming service shows.
All 7 episodes are available online, starting with #1 here:
Image credits: Channel101
So, what are some of your favorite things to do in IKEA? Let us know in the comments below!
