Canada: IKEA used customer dreams as a form of product reviews

International furniture brand IKEA has launched an unusual marketing campaign in Canada, focused on demonstrating the quality of sleep on their mattresses. As part of the Sleep Talk Reviews project, the company collected informal customer reviews - not through questionnaires or comments, but literally "in a dream".

For two nights, an immersive environment was organized in the IKEA North York showroom in Toronto, where real campaign participants spent the night relaxing on the brand's mattresses. The space was equipped with hidden cameras and microphones, which allowed recording more than 90 hours of sound material. Recorded fragments of participants ' nocturnal mutterings, monologues, and spontaneous responses became the basis of a series of original "reviews", presented as a form of sincere and unbiased assessment of the comfort of products.

The goal of the campaign was to highlight how deeply and calmly IKEA mattress users sleep, without resorting to obsessive storytelling or staged commercials. From the brand's point of view, mumbling during sleep is a sign of being in a deep sleep phase, which indirectly confirms the effectiveness and convenience of the product. The campaign focuses on the importance of sleep as an element of quality of life and focuses on the emotional authenticity of the client's experience.

The idea has received a multiplatform continuation: audio fragments are broadcast in radio format, available on the Spotify music platform, used in the brand's social networks, and also placed on outdoor advertising near the flagship store in downtown Toronto. The concept of Sleep Talk Reviews fits into IKEA's strategy of promoting functional and affordable solutions for the home, while demonstrating a non-standard approach to building communication with the audience.

The brand has previously experimented with creative formats — for example, in one of the campaigns, an image of a mattress was created as a means of protecting against the temptations of watching short videos at night, emphasizing the priority of sleep over digital habits. Such moves allow the company to strengthen the emotional connection with the audience, while maintaining simplicity, intimacy and recognizable style.

IKEA continues to demonstrate leadership in marketing, combining product availability with an emotionally rich presentation and drawing on real-life scenarios in which consumers recognize themselves.