IKEA traps contestants in the 90s to mark 25th anniversary in Spain

By Laura Kirkpatrick on Friday, September 10, 2021

To mark IKEA’s 25th anniversary in Spain, the brand released a spin off Big Brother reality show, confining contestants within a pre-Ikea, 1990s style home.

‘Trapped in the ’90s”, created via McCann Spain, consists of eight online episodes of six Spaniards under the age of 25 grapple with the horrors of retro furnishing, rotary dial phones and gas stoves…

Throughout the series, new Ikea products are gradually introduced to the suffering adolescents as a way to ‘survive the ordeal’.

“It’s the first time that Ikea has made a campaign in the format of a reality show,” said Laura Durán, marketing & insights director for Ikea in Spain, “The goal was to show in a humorous way how Ikea’s products have democratized design, marking a before and after in Spanish homes since its arrival in 1996.”

Working with specialised reality show producers and writers, weeks were spent searching for the suitable occupants. The show was co-directed by Maxi Blanco from Landia and Santy García from Big Brother, shot at El Alamo Studios in Madrid, and the carefully constructed 90s house was filmed by more than 20 cameras, with over 100 hours of content recorded.

The full set of episodes were released between August 22nd and September 5th on YouTube and Ikea’s website.

“We didn’t want to make an ad that looked like a reality show. We wanted to make a reality show. Period,” added Emiliano Gonzalez De Pietri, chief creative officer of McCann Spain. “You could call this an integrated campaign and you would be right —it’s totally pervasive. But the way we see it, it’s an extremely popular TV show that happens to be an Ikea campaign.”