Ikea: aisles of inspiration, the walk through the showrooms, the writing down of aisle and bin numbers, serving yourself in the warehouse and the self-assembly at home, it’s a shopping experience unlike any other. Now, imagine you’ve never been to one: it’s thrilling and daunting all at the same time. How do I shop the store? What do you mean I have to find the couch in a warehouse? Put it together myself?

Those were the challenges facing Ikea when it opened its first store in the city fondly known as “Winterpeg.” With only 17% of Winnipeggers aware of Ikea, and with the nearest Ikea being over 2,000 km away, the vast majority had no familiarity with the Ikea concept.

It all added up to two big challenges. First, the agency needed to generate the awareness and excitement to drive big crowds to opening week. And second, it needed to create understanding because big crowds could also equal chaos and negative first impressions if those big crowds had no idea how to shop the store.

To address the challenges, an idea was hatched that would educate Winnipegers on the Ikea concept. Insights into teaching revealed when learning is fun, people want to participate more. From this thinking, Learn Ikea was born – a campaign that would excite and educate people about the brand, its products, its shopping experience and its unique personality.

For the six weeks leading up to opening day, Winnipeg was turned into a virtual classroom, with multiple marketing disciplines and mediums used to excite, teach and even quiz Winnipeggers about Ikea.

From a sales perspective, average ticket price was the key measure for Ikea and it was based on store opening results from other markets in Canada (Ottawa and Richmond). It would prove whether the campaign had created hungry buyers vs. curious browsers of the new store.

The campaign began with direct mail, by dropping Learn Ikea handbooks at homes across Winnipeg. These fun and stylish crib notes covered all the chapters in the Ikea story from its history to its style, quality, organization and value principles, to enjoying meals in the restaurant.

Newspaper, OOH, ambient and digital took learning further with interactive lessons on Ikea. And local TV and radio spots were turned into opportunities for Winnipeggers to take quizzes to demonstrate their growing knowledge of Ikea and to win gift cards for opening week. And they were introduced to the iconic Ikea Allen Key with a portable vending machine that travelled the city giving people a chance to unlock Ikea food products and gift cards with the simple turn of an Allen Key.

Social media played a big role in creating a shared learning curriculum. Twitter and Facebook were used to give people sneak peeks of the store, to ask and answer questions and to generate buzz for the vending machine as it moved around the city.

When opening day and week arrived, Winnipeggers flocked to Ikea to show off their knowledge.

Ambitious sales and conversion goals based on store openings from much larger established markets were exceeded. And with average ticket prices exceeding goals by a whopping 22%, Learn Ikea solved the fears of potential chaos resulting from thousands of first-time shoppers by turning them into happy first-time buyers.