Right Now: IKEA Catalogue Launch

IKEA pulled back the curtain this morning on what was rumoured to be its first downtown Toronto location at 143 King Street East. The showroom is, in fact, a lavish launching pad for the company’s 2009 product catalogue. That’s right folks, 3,300 square feet of beautifully-styled hype.

The curtains and window signage went up two weeks ago to help build some buzz and the whole thing comes down Sunday evening. “We’re just trying to create some excitement about our new product lines,” said a friendly IKEA staffer, “and point to some of the trends we’re forecasting for the year ahead.”

So what’s in the IKEA tarot cards? Lots of black and white apparently, with bold pops of colour to inject excitement. Upstairs, a second tier is turned out as an inner sanctum showcasing cream, white and beige with graphic hits of fuchsia.

If IKEA’s goal is to blow off some of the down-market pall that clings to its brand, the King Street experiment is a dazzling success. The vignettes all have a luxurious feel to them, owing mostly to the high gloss surfaces and graphic arrangements. We’ll no doubt be seeing much of this stuff on Craigslist in three years time but that’s another article. For now IKEA’s audacious marketing gambit is a resounding triumph!