IKEA moving to Meerkats
IKEA – Perth’s most creative account – is set to move to Meerkats after less than two years at Marketforce. Details are limited at this stage and Campaign Brief is seeking confirmation of when the move takes effect and will update the story as more details become available.
Meerkats’ Mike Edmonds said he wasn’t sure when the account would movebut that they had had some preliminary discussions with IKEA about thefuture direction for the business.
“They’re a very creative company and we believe in their values so we’re really looking forward to working with them.”
Meerkats was invited to pitch for the business at the end 2008 however the agency declined because it had only recently picked up HBF and felt they didn’t have the capacity and that time to handle both pieces of business.
With HBF now bedded in, the agency obviously feels able to take on IKEA now.
The win caps off a huge week for Meerkats, with their triumph at Cannes and appearance on The Gruen Transfer tomorrow night.
18 Comments
Let me be the first to congratulate you all.
OUCH
I reckon they should just give consumers a whole bunch of words and make them put the ad together themselves.
F……g brilliant. Best news I’ve heard all day.
1.18. Ouch. Understatement of the year…..and maybe more to come?
Maybe a good shake up all round including senior and management is required. A sort of reinvention if you like. You would have to agree, this is not a good a look from a prospective clients point of view. Confidence is contagious.
Wow! Big, big news. Great for the Cats and makes sense, with the potential for a great partnership. Did 303 get a look in? Tough for Marketforce, feel for you guys, you really did some lovely work.
CB, Does that mean the media planning & spend has moved from Media Decisions / OMDs as well? Or still to be announced?
Cb could you please publish a list of awards won for ikea over the time it’s been in perth.i’d love to see exactly what fruits the towns’ most creative account’ have produced.
so the guys at meerkats get to work with mike edmonds AND on ikea?? thats got to be the best job in perth
I’d say the move is less about awards and more about management. From what I’ve heard, IKEA have had a tough time at Marketforce having lost Richard Beards and Sue Stirling as Account Directors, a number of account managers, co-ordinators, consultants and pretty much the whole digital team changing in the past few months… It would be very hard to have confidence in your agency if the people you are dealing with keep disappearing.
MF were never going to be a ‘cultural fit’ for IKEA. However I really hope IKEA’s shortsighted appointment of them doesn’t result in the team hired to do the work getting axed – coz it’s not their fault.
9.23 You can’t say it was a shortsighted appointment of MF. Obviously it hasn’t worked out and there should be a lot of soul searching at MF over it. But at the time of their appointment, Ikea wanted to leave 303 and were never going to stay at 303, and after Meerkats declined to be involved where else could they have gone?
Forum Reader. Re the staffing issues at MF. Just another day at at the office then. Let’s be honest some pretty good people have been axed or left over the past couple of years.
12.08 RARE?
Though will the crew/cast for the Ikea ads still stay in Perth and not move to the Eastern States? HBF classic example
4.45 Again, where else could they have gone?
Lets do the maths-if the media goes-which is most likely as the Kool Kats don’t tend to stick close to the litter, that will be close to 30 million plus that they’ve shipped across to the East-maybe our local govt should impose a super tax!
4.45pm
Are you saying that Rare is capable of handling this account or not?
Perths most creative account? list the awards on ikea vs ors over the last decade and there will be clear winner