The Swedish furniture shop has made the odd request regarding one of its magazine advertisements – but there is a good reason for the strange campaign.
The full page ad, which was placed in Swedish women’s magazine Amelia, has a picture of a cot on it, with the caption “Peeing on this ad may change your life”, along with the price of the cot – priced 995 krona (£89).
If one relieves themselves on the advert, and you are pregnant – it should be noted at this point that the advert is probably only for women – then a discount appears, offering the code for half price.
If the discount appears, the customer has to take the advert, drenched in urine, to an IKEA store to redeem the voucher.
If the price reduction does not show up, however, then your magazine is ruined.
Swedish agency Åkestam Holst, who created the advert, told AdWeek: “In order to make the interactive functions of this ad work in reality, we had to make several technical advancements.
“The pregnancy test strip was used as a starting point, which relies on antibodies that bind to the pregnancy hormone hCG, resulting in colour change… Careful selection of materials, together with a controlled capillary flow have been crucial for the success of this project.
“Technical advancements made during the work with this campaign have the potential to improve medical diagnostics.”
Reaction to the advert has been overwhelmingly positive on social media.
Andrew Bloch posted on Twitter: “Genius idea from Ikea – Ad doubles as a pregnancy test. If you’re pregnant, peeing on the ad reveals a special discounted price on cots.”
There were obviously jokes to be made.
Rob Hemus posted: “Turns out I’m not pregnant. But I’m banned from Ikea.”