WHY GREAT BRANDS COMMIT TO THE BIT
What IKEA and Hendrick's can teach us about creative confidence
At Wonderworks, we're always drawn to brands that have the confidence to take a good creative idea further than anyone reasonably expects.
Not necessarily the biggest ideas. Or the most expensive. But the ones where somebody spots a playful opportunity and commits the effort to make it something genuinely memorable.
Two examples spring to mind. One involves a Swedish furniture giant entering the world of fantasy gaming. The other, a gin brand making pickles.
Bear with us...
IKEA's Skyrim Collaboration: A Joke Worth Taking Seriously
IKEA's KALLAX STORAGEBORN campaign is a brilliant example of what happens when a brand finds a natural connection with an audience and really runs with it.
For anyone unfamiliar with Skyrim, it's a fantasy game infamous for encouraging players to hoard absurd quantities of everything they encounter. Weapons, bones, keys, cheeses, cabbages. You name it, somebody's probably collecting it.
Enter IKEA.
A brand built around bringing order to the chaos of everyday life, with a particularly recognisable storage solution in the KALLAX shelving unit.
It's a beautifully simple creative crossover.
IKEA turned KALLAX into an in-game companion that follows players around, helping organise their inventory.
Great joke. But what makes this such a smart piece of creative strategy is how far they took it.
They brought in Matt Berry to voice the shelf. Created a free downloadable game extension that players could actually experience. Even introduced an Allen key sword and meatball helmet.
They didn't just reference gaming culture in an advertising campaign. They created something that became part of it.
And that's a much more interesting way to build a relationship with an audience.
Hendrick's and Katz's Deli: When the Joke Becomes the Product
It reminds us of another wonderfully unlikely brand collaboration.
A few years ago, Hendrick's Gin partnered with New York institution Katz's Delicatessen to create a limited-edition range of gin-inspired half-sour pickles.
The idea originally started as an April Fool's joke, playing on the two brands' shared affection for cucumbers.
But when the internet responded enthusiastically, they actually made them.
A real product, available through Katz's website, bringing together two brands with distinctive personalities and a surprisingly natural connection.
Again, this could easily have ended with a funny social post and a few days of engagement.
Instead, they turned the joke into something fans could genuinely buy, taste and talk about.
That's what makes the collaboration interesting. Not simply the unexpected pairing, but the willingness to go the extra mile.
Why Creative Commitment Builds Brand Love
We can imagine plenty of meetings where either of these ideas might have been quietly killed.
How are we measuring the sales impact?
Isn't that a lot of effort to spend on a joke?
And perhaps, viewed purely through the lens of short-term return, they're fair questions.
But not every brand activation needs to drive an immediate transaction to be valuable.
Sometimes the effort is the point.
There's something inherently appealing about a brand going to slightly unreasonable lengths to entertain its audience. It shows confidence, personality and an understanding of what its fans actually care about.
And when that commitment creates something people can experience, rather than observe, the impact can be much more meaningful.
As a creative drinks agency, that's an exciting part of brand building. Finding opportunities to turn a simple creative thought into something tangible that people want to participate in.
Other Brands Committing to the Bit
IKEA and Hendrick's aren't alone in recognising the value of taking a playful thought seriously.
Liquid Death x YETI – The Casket Cooler
In a gloriously unnecessary collaboration, Liquid Death and YETI created a fully functional, life-sized coffin that doubled as a drinks cooler. They even auctioned off the one-of-a-kind creation. A ridiculous idea brought to life with an extraordinary level of commitment, and a brilliant example of experiential marketing that people genuinely wanted to talk about.
Dr Pepper x Tic Tac – When an April Fool's Joke Became Real
What started as a playful April Fool's tease about Dr Pepper-flavoured Tic Tacs generated enough excitement that the brands eventually launched them for real. A perfect example of how social media marketing can become something much more meaningful when brands recognise an opportunity to reward their audience's enthusiasm.
KFC – The Pickle Puffer Jacket
Inspired by a viral AI-generated video, KFC went to the trouble of creating an actual transparent puffer jacket filled with pickles, giving fans the chance to win it through Instagram. Completely absurd, entirely unnecessary, and exactly the sort of idea that makes people stop scrolling.
Sometimes the Effort Is the Idea
The lesson from IKEA and Hendrick's isn't that every brand needs to make a video game or launch a novelty product.
It's that a strong creative idea deserves the confidence to be properly brought to life.
Because sometimes the difference between a campaign people scroll past and one they genuinely love is simply how far the brand is willing to take it.
And that's how you start turning brand awareness into something closer to cult fandom.
Inspired by our Creative Strategist, Dom Stancombe's Weekly Rambles
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