Ikea Hops into Bed-making Contest
Furniture retailer Ikea has begun an online video contest that will award a $5,000 shopping spree for the best bed-making technique. Don’t bother with hospital corners, though: Ikea wants bed-makers who break the rules.
The “Break the Rules Bed Making” contest runs on Shycast, a startup social networking site built for brands to stage video contests. Shycast hopes brands will not only run their own contests, but also tap Shycast “community members” who visit the site for ideas on promotions and prizes. So far, 19 visitors have posted ideas for brands including Apple, Red Bull, Guinness, Pringles and Fender Guitars.
Ikea is the first marketer to field a contest on Shycast. (The site’s only other contest so far is its own, a “Best Original Song” competition with a Paolo Nutini-autographed guitar as its prize.)
Entrants to Ikea’s contest submit videos of their unusual bed-making style by March 9; site visitors get to rate the videos.
A panel of judges from Ikea will choose 20 finalists, based on creativity, originality and overall entertainment. Shycast users get to vote on the top 10 finalists, which will be posted on the site. Then Ikea will re-judge those 10 videos, factoring in consumers’ votes as 30% of the total score.
Once Ikea picks a grand-prize winner, it will post the remaining 19 finalists on March 21 for consumers to choose five first-prize winners. Those first-prize winners each get a $500 Ikea gift card.
Conshohocken, PA-based Ikea handles the contest in-house in collaboration with Shycast. Don Jagoda & Associates, Melville, NY, administers the contest.
Ikea has 28 stores in the U.S., with two more planned to open this year. The company reported U.S. sales of about $2.6 billion, 12% of its worldwide sales of about $22.4 billion (17.3 billion Euros) for fiscal 2006, ended Aug. 31.
