And it’s printed!
Earlier this week I watched a programme on TV called Flatpack Empire. It was an interesting ‘behind the scenes’ look at the Swedish furniture chain IKEA and the production of the IKEA catalogue.
It’s a massive business with some huge numbers;
- €38.3 billion in sales
- 2.3 billion website visits
- 936 million store visitors
- 194,000 co-workers
- 403 stores worldwide
The IKEA Catalogue
But the figure that struck me was the 210 million print run of the 2018 edition catalogue ; now 210 million catalogues at 328 pages that’s a lot of print!
Since 2004 the IKEA catalogue has been considered the companies main marketing tool and 70% of the marketing budget is allocated to its production.
It’s 9 months in production, and the photo studio for shooting the catalogue images is one of the biggest in Europe, covering a massive 8,000sqm in IKEA’s home town, Älmhult.
The importance of the catalogue cannot be understated though (so important that the cover design must first get approval from IKEA’s ‘catalogue council’ before it can be sent for print) as the publication of the catalogue always leads to a jump in profits.
In 2015 IKEA produced an advert to present the KIEA catalogue in a manner that mimicked Apple’s promotional style.
The BookBook advert made me smile then and still makes me smile today!
One more IKEA stat for you:
Selling one billion meatballs from their restaurants globally every year, helps to make IKEA the 10th largest food retailer in the world!
