With a flex of its Swedish muscle, Ikea has created its own hate site. It’s a fascinating concept - why wait for someone else to do it when you can do one yourself!
It’s obviously part of their new marketing campaign “Elite Designers Against Ikea” (http://elitedesigners.org/) which features the terribly chic ‘Van Der Puup’ and his “crusade against the big stupid blue place, IKEA”.
It even features a little store, where you can buy a mug for £370 or a Limousine flag for £420. On attempting to purchase a mug, I was told:
Thank you for your interest in my beautiful creations.
Your order will be examined and processed shortly if we feel you are worthy of posessing our Elite Design items.
Pure farce, but a great example of a viral campaign which is sure to set blogs alight around the world.
Now, if only Microsoft had thought of this. It would have saved their legal department millions.
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October 6, 2004 at 11:28 am
CTerry
Maybe Invision should create an Invision hate site.
You know “we’re petty, we don’t want to pay for things, people who pay suck”
Etc.
October 6, 2004 at 11:44 am
Matt
We did. We call it “The Forum Insider”. To the casual viewer it’s just a community of children with pitchforks but it’s actually a cleverly designed marketing stunt designed to virally expose the IPS brand. All those pitchfork waving children are actually one person; Bradley Greenberg who has been working undercover for IPS for well over two years generating controversy around the web. He works for us freelance as he is fully employed by a well known US magazine.
October 6, 2004 at 5:52 pm
Dagur
That’s just false. TFI has nothing to do with IPS.
October 6, 2004 at 6:03 pm
Bas Westerbaan
You got no sense of humour do you
October 6, 2004 at 6:27 pm
Dagur
Although I know Matt wasn’t serious I’m not so sure everybody who read this blog do. You have to have emoticons or something, that’s what they’re for.
October 6, 2004 at 6:45 pm
feelX
October 6, 2004 at 7:24 pm
Matt
Yes, of course it’s a joke. Next time, I’ll make sure I file it under “Satire” to prevent confusion.
October 7, 2004 at 6:15 pm
feelX
^^
October 7, 2004 at 10:03 pm
annoymous
Wasn’t there an IPS marketing stunt like this once? There was this site where they had a product that looked exactly like IPB and they kept claiming it would always be free? A cleverly designed marketing stunt designed to virally expose the IPS brand as you say.
October 7, 2004 at 11:26 pm
CTerry
The stupidity of people never ceases to amaze me.
October 8, 2004 at 1:40 am
DanC
Oh how amusing, ‘annoymous’.
October 8, 2004 at 9:53 am
Matt
“There was this site where they had a product that looked exactly like IPB and they kept claiming it would always be free?”
No. That was actually us.
October 9, 2004 at 1:06 pm
Mike
Pwned!
October 13, 2004 at 8:58 pm
Anonymous
Seems like my previous comment got deleted? I guess that only goes towards proving it? Hmm.
October 13, 2004 at 10:20 pm
Jabberwocky
*sighs* again with this old boot… Why can’t people just get along? IPB is a high-grae product. You could almost compare them giving it awy to microsoft giving windows Away. Windows is top in it’s class (in most people’s opinion - don’t even get me started on OS/browser wars!), as is IPB. Yet IPB give you a better deal than it’s closest competitor(s)
November 9, 2004 at 5:45 am
JD
The fake websites are very funny. I remember “asian prince”. That one ruled! Then there was that one Lee Jeans did…what the heck was that guy’s name supposed to be?
Anyway, I think mock sites rule. So a fake site made by the people of IPS would rule. Maybe you could do a rival forum software, and make it like the OLD SCHOOL wwwboard. lol And you could have these testimonials from people who “own large and unnamed companies” that claim to use the software. And they compare it to IPB, and this super board always is cooler.
November 9, 2004 at 11:18 am
Matt
I like your style JD.