Ikea. Junk furniture made with unsustainable materials manufactured and collated by exploited workers so we can have dilapidated and readily disposable crap in our shrinking living space.
Ikea is in the hot seat this month after being caught vandalizing hundreds of pieces of public and private property. Picture at upper-right: Unreal.
Given that IKEA’s environmental stewardship is more global wrecking ball than actual contributor to real solutions, their recent botched ad campaign seems entirely apropos – Corporate guerrilla art it’s called. They spray-paint (vandalize) public space in the name of corporate kitsch and coolness – and it bites.
Ikea. You stink and it ain’t the reek of laminate.
IKEA—third largest global consumer of wood— gets many of its raw materials from regions where illegal logging is rampant and environmental stewardship is as absent as your parents on your first big night out. IKEA’s wares, and the industrial location of its big-box stores (consumers have to travel by car to make their purchases, or even exchange faulty small parts), speak to a unfailing disregard for environmental consideration.
The hoo-haw around Ikea’s use of “chalk spray” graffiti to complement a TV ad campaign aimed at driving viewers to a website where they could enter a contest to win $15,000 worth of furniture – has caused them to back peddle faster than a RCMP officer at a taser inquiry.
The ads featured a yellow dotted line framing the slogan “Any Place Can Be Beautiful,” a website of the same name and “Aug. 10,” the date Ikea plans to deliver 5.5 million flyers to Canadian homes.
Although I have never been a fan of the crap that they sell, I am now even more resolved to never set foot in one of their soul crushing retail outlets. Shame on Ikea for stealing our public space and branding it for commercial gain.
Comments
4 responses to “Summer Food Fun and Drink – why Ikea sucks”
Good rant….a tad grumpy perhaps but several good points.
To this rant I would add my two pet peeves with Ikea. First, their customer service is absolutely non-existent. Heaven help you if some parts are missing when you start assembling your Ikea whatever-it- is. And, their clever marketing suckers consumers into thinking it makes sense to drive from Kelowna to Coquitlam to visit their big box.
My only kudo to Ikea is that some of their stuff features great european design at reasonable prices.
But, I still think it’s better to try hard to shop locally…an alternative in Victoria for example is Nood—-still a chain store but at least they offer Ikea type furniture at a local location!
Not sure what your real problem with Ikea is, great products and great prices, way better than the junk you get a Staples and Office Depot.
Innovation plus, I would say.We don’t live in a perfect world by any stretch, but Ikea is doing a good job of what they do.
Richard – you are obviously not reading what I wrote, or following what I am trying to say. What I am saying is that Ikea is a fraud – they espouse environmental stewardship and they sell junk built from unsustainable resources – materials from countries with no environmental standards, exploited workers – and they vandalize private property. What do not you not get?
Great rant.
I blacklisted Ikea years ago when they refused the allow Canadian veterans to sell poppies outside of their stores.