IKEA is in the news as it has decided to remove some authentic Swedish food brands from its shelves and replace them with generic IKEA packaging.
Is it to provide flexibility in order to change suppliers when necessary (ding! ding!), a decision to promote the IKEA brand to a wider global audience, or an opportunity for IKEA to enter the food market in a big way?
The obvious answer (and the answer provided by IKEA PR) is that it allows for greater flexibility with suppliers. The nice way of portraying this is that they can maintain a certain level of quality and standards. Of course it also means they can play hardball with their suppliers and demand better terms. Fair enough.
But does their new food strategy hurt their brand perception?
A discussion was started on Tom H. C. Anderson’s blog and I really enjoyed the discussion. An excerpt that caught my eye was this one:
Nationality as a branding strategy has been on the wane recently it seems. According to a study my firm did in 2007, only 38% of US college students knew that IKEA was a Swedish brand (24% assumed it was American).
Besides appearing to me to be a “Such as Maps” moment, I can see why IKEA might think their new food strategy is a valid one since many people don’t know or even care that IKEA is Swedish.
Does it matter that some very key influencers combined with the network effect of Social Media could influence the buying patterns of the larger mass of people? Do a small group of vocal, influential and motivated people armed with social media sites and blogs have disproportionate influence? Yes, but does it matter to a brand?
As always, it depends.
If the brand relies on authenticity or some sort of “coolness” factor, then the bad word of mouth from key influencers can affect whether or not the brand suffers with fewer and fewer customers. It doesn’t even matter if these influencers are customers themselves. Time will tell and in cases like these, market research could be the answer! (*ahem*)
