Ikea and the Modern Society

Ikea and the Modern Society
By: Dara Pickering



Ikea, home to the favorite underpriced Swedish furniture, has recently launched a diversity tolerance campaign both outdoors and in print. The furniture store’s mission that reads, “dedicated to home,” has now become dedicated in raising awareness about diversity. The company goes far beyond typical issues of diversity, such as race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, and also targets populations we tend to forget about, such as the elderly. After all, age discrimination is an issue of equal opportunity as well, lest we forget.
The advertising campaign is a clever mix of art and humanitarianism that appears in many public transit stops. The campaign posters are composed of thousands of Ikea products that make up the bigger picture of diverse faces. The message,"Long Live Diversity," is easy to decipher with no hidden agendas.
Since early 1994, Ikea has been known to feature non-nuclear, middle-class families in its commercials and print advertisements. Ikea recently featured a homosexual couple in its seasonal magazine, revisiting earlier advertisements aimed at the gay and lesbian community. When the magazine faced media scrutiny, Ikea representatives defended the picture, saying the magazine promotes modern society, a society that is not necessarily straight. Ikea has also addressed issues such as transgender or gender reassignment in its overseas advertisements.
When such globally prominate companies such as Ikea make strides towards building awareness about diversity, other companies follow suit. For example, Sprint, Southwest Airlines and Sears are a few companies that have decided to become more directed towards diverse audiences. The society in which we live has grown immensely in terms of diversity within the last decade. In order to deliver messages to target audiences, it will be important to increase diversity awareness much like the Ikea advertisements.