Living IKEA: shopping experiences, making homes and branding sustainability

"Living IKEA" aims to define the "intangibles" that IKEA "sells" through its range of products. In order to achieve this objective the research studied IKEA's strategies of commercialization, promotion and communication. This study was developed through a mixed methodology that comprised an ethnographic fieldwork at two different IKEA's stores; the visual analysis of the 2013 IKEA's catalogue, and a textual analysis of IKEA's sustainability reports. Based on the results obtained this dissertation argues: that IKEA provides shoppers with "shopping experiences" while they are visiting the store; that IKEA creates and promote particular "ways of life at home" throughout the pages of its catalogue; and that IKEA attaches "environmental values" to its products using sustainable reports. These arguments are advanced through three chapters that present: the principles of the IKEA experience, the patterns of the IKEA home and the environmental values that make IKEA "more sustainable".