AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising

One-Minute MarketerBranding is Everything at IKEA

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Branding is Everything at IKEA

Advertising Age did an article some time ago claiming that branding is everything. The idea is that branding is moving from just a products positioning to experiential orientation, then every touchpoint becomes a critical factor in your brand perception. So it’s not just the drink at the bar, but the service, the environment, how they made you feel and the drink.20180724_082039

It may have always been that way and now we are realizing it; or because products are pretty much the same, we are looking for any kind of differentiating metric to help us make decisions on where we spend our money. Either way, the emphasis now is on the holistic approach. Which is a long way to taking you to IKEA.

I was in IKEA, a really big, big-box store. I thought the prevailing winds said these were dead. This store in Chicago was packed. It looked like holiday shopping time, not the middle of July. IKEA does a lot of things right. They are so smart with the design of the store, but it is the graphic management of the store that so impressed me. Especially the iconic color of the building. Now that is color branding that makes an instant impact as you drive up. High contrast yellow makes their logo pop.20180722_124315

It’s basically a home store, but the cafe had a line a mile long. The cafe is not a throwaway junk-food department. It had fresh food worth standing in line for, before you stand in line to check out. They even had a place for you to give feedback after you were done with your meal.

IKEA is measuring its success not only by the bottom line, but also by the bottom line of customer experience. And that means everything to branding.

Written by:

Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.

After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.

He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”

Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”

One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.

Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.

Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.