There’s an old story from World War 1 about a bunch of soldiers in the trenches. The only way to get orders down the line was to tell the first man in the trench and he would pass it on. On one occasion a British Major delivered an order, “Send reinforcements – we’re going to advance”.
IKEA has a solid history of excellent communication. The Swedish powerhouse is just too good at creating campaigns and communicating to their target market effectively through all kinds of marketing techniques.
As I say, this is not a new problem. Business Owners for generations have lacked the time they needed to achieve their goals and aspirations. But the digital age brings a new dimension to this age old problem.
The digital phenomenon of the meme might seem simple and a bit reductive or crude as a form of communication, but they’re fascinating and surprisingly complex to execute well.
When MP3’s first came out, it surprisingly left large industry behemoths scrambling. When the dust settled from the initial “we’ll all go broke!” tanty they realised the money to be made and put back on their golden suits and made a truckload (streaming tunes are not classed as album sales and are seen as PR so the artists get even less of a cut).
Technology can be frustrating and the emergence of things we can’t even pronounce can send the best of us into endless turmoil.
Even though I may see the strategy department as the evil negative force that wants to destroy all the beauty and light that is design, I accept that their input from all the boring statistics.