Today in what-did-I-just-read: ‘Pee on ad and get discount’, IKEA to pregnant women

Published in Sweden's women's magazine, Amelia, the ad proudly proclaims 'to change your life if you pee on it'

By: News Desk |
January 12, 2018 12:57 pm

To what length would you go to avail a discount? What about peeing on an ad? Sounds gross, right? But popular Swedish company, IKEA has come up with this ‘bright’ idea where pregnant women need only pee on their ad to avail a ‘family discount’ on a baby’s crib. Wondering how does this work? Allow us to explain.

Published in Sweden’s women’s magazine, Amelia, the ad, which proudly proclaims ‘to change your life if you pee on it’, goes like:

“This ad is also a pregnancy test. Pee on the marked area and wait a moment. If you’re pregnant, you’ll get a surprise right here in the ad.”

The ad is part of Ikea’s ‘Where Life Happens’ campaign designed for Sweden.

And wait, if this wasn’t enough to gross you out, the ad nowhere explains how are these women going to avail this discount? So putting their wild imagination at work, Twitter figured out may be the women were supposed to take the ‘urine-soaked ad to a store and hand it to a worker’. Ewww!

I just have one question to Ikea… WHY??? #Ikea #Pee pic.twitter.com/35BZzl7cGF

— Pasi Lahti (@lahti_pasi) January 10, 2018

I can’t decide whether to applaud the creative activation or … well, just be grossed out. https://t.co/NqmgG4GqWm

— Ryan Wood (@RyanWoodDFW) January 9, 2018

“Ikea Wants Pregnant Women to Pee All Over Their Ads to Get a Discounted Crib” and then take the urine soaked ad to a store and hand it to a worker?! https://t.co/iSCxZ4SOOa

— Flavia Dzodan (@redlightvoices) January 10, 2018

Ouch, hit me where it hurts. pic.twitter.com/tuLic8IR4c

— Daniel Genser (@DanielGenser) January 10, 2018

Grøspëë is not an ikea product name yet, is it?

— Flavia Dzodan (@redlightvoices) January 10, 2018

I wish I was in the brainstorm meeting

— Oksana Chernichenko (@TheRussianRage) January 9, 2018

$10 to a good cause that the team that came up with this was those twelve diverse white males

— Sindarina Stormcrow, Finder of Edge Cases (@sindarina) January 10, 2018

Note to self: never be a cashier at Ikea https://t.co/Q6Dtd7El3d

— Stephen LaConte (@stephenlc) January 9, 2018

PSA: Ads like these ‘don’t change lives’, they just remind everyone that a different ad agency should be in the offing.