Sign in with Google Martina Winklerová and Stanislav Nalieskin oversee campaigns designed to bring customers to Ikea stores across Czechia, Hungary, and Slovakia.
At Ikea, our vision is to create a better everyday life for “the many” people. Historically, “the many” were found gathered around the television set, and that’s why it was our main vehicle for building brand penetration in Czechia, Hungary, and Slovakia.
But today, the viewer’s attention has shifted. While television remains a key pillar of our reach, we recognise that staying present in our customers’ lives now requires a seamless synergy between the big screen and digital platforms.
In Czechia alone — a market of 10.9 million people — YouTube reached over 7 million adults aged 18+ in February 2025.1 When nearly 70% of a nation’s adult population are active monthly users through a single digital platform, it is no longer a supporting channel; it is a core pillar of our media mix.
By evolving to an always-on YouTube strategy, we discovered a way to maintain our “mental availability” (being present in consumers’ minds) 365 days a year.
The challenge: Navigating the “double inflation” of TV
For a brand built on democratic design — balancing form, function, quality, and sustainability with low price — accessibility is everything. But accessibility isn’t just about the price tag on a Billy bookcase; it is about being present when customers are ready for inspiration.
We want Ikea to be the first choice the moment a need arises, whether it’s a total room makeover or refreshing a space with new home accessories.
We had begun seeing a “double inflation” effect in traditional TV. Firstly, we faced rising cost per points — the price tag we pay to reach 1% of our target audience. Secondly, these rising costs were colliding with decreasing average time spent, the metric tracking how long a viewer actually stays tuned to a channel.
Maintaining mental availability is critical to our strategy; we want Ikea to be the first choice the moment a need arises, whether it’s a total room makeover or refreshing a space with new home accessories. However, as traditional television audiences become more fragmented and media costs continue to rise, relying on a single channel poses a risk to our brand presence.
To mitigate this risk, we evolved our strategy to honour our roots while embracing the future. Since television has been the cornerstone of our marketing for years, our objective was to create a synergy between TV and digital channels like YouTube. This integrated approach allowed us to expand our presence while ensuring a smarter, more balanced allocation of our media budget.
This year, as part of our growth focus, we’re putting additional emphasis on ‘Cooking and Eating’, and utilising our brand campaigns, including YouTube in driving interest in this category.
The pivot: From campaign “bursts” to “always-on” continuity
Historically, our YouTube presence was tactical. We ran flights; short bursts of activity tied to specific seasonal campaigns, like Christmas. This created a sawtooth effect where our brand awareness on the platform would spike and then drop off.
However, we are now observing an evolution in viewing habits. While linear television remains a cornerstone for reaching a broad and loyal audience, we are seeing a consistent increase in engagement across digital video and Connected TVs.
So, in 2025 we shifted our philosophy. We designated YouTube as our “always-on reach extender”. Instead of coming on and off the air, we committed to a 100% weekly presence across all three countries. The goal was to move away from these volatile bursts and create a stable, baseline level of reach that never dips.
In each country, we wanted to produce content that addresses our customers’ needs. To ensure we weren’t just guessing what to focus on in each market, we used System1 testing — a tool to measure advertising effectiveness — to validate these local country nuances.
We learned that in Czechia there is a more practical mindset focused on replacement, repair, and renovation. Whilst in Hungary the emphasis is more on trends and treating oneself. In Slovakia, personalisation and individuality play a stronger role.
Here’s how we showed a family renovating, by building a bookshelf, in Czechia:
Based on these insights, we were able to adapt content and messaging locally, while the overall media strategy approach remained aligned with our global and regional principles.
Creative adaptation: The ABCD framework
One of our biggest realisations was that creative assets must be fit-for-purpose. We don’t just recycle TV adverts; we optimise them. To do this, our creative agencies follow the ABCD framework, a set of research-backed golden rules for effective YouTube content.
For example, the C is for connection, and in this video, we wanted to make the viewer feel something through relatable, everyday life storytelling:
We had to move away from the idea that a single 30-second video works everywhere. We validated this shift through Brand Lift studies, which showed us exactly how our creative was moving the needle on brand favourability and purchase intent.
By applying the ABCD rules, particularly when recutting traditional spots into vertical formats for YouTube Shorts, we saw significantly higher engagement and better results than our previous on-and-off approach.
Validation: Proving the value of 1 second
Moving budget from proven traditional media was met with initial natural scepticism internally regarding potential traffic dips. To overcome this, we let the data lead the way. We used econometrics to prove that digital video wasn’t just a “nice to have”, but a key contributor to business growth.
Online video and paid search remain among our top contributors of sales. We have doubled our investment on YouTube as this channel continues to deliver robust performance. In fact, YouTube delivered the highest short-term ROI among our five biggest paid media channels. In Czechia, for instance, YouTube is our third biggest driver of long-term revenue, and for two years in a row has delivered the highest total ROI.
We also moved beyond basic views to a more rigorous metric: cost per one second watched. This allows us to understand exactly how much it costs to hold a customer’s attention, ensuring we are actually resonating with the audience.
Results confirm that our new strategy is successfully building mental availability for the many. We achieved a reach of 6.4 million people on YouTube in Czechia (75% of adult population). Furthermore, 2025 data for our “cooking and eating” campaign shows a 5.1% lift in ad recall.
The road ahead: Full-funnel and category focus
Looking further into 2026, we want to experiment with shoppable content and dynamic features to bridge the gap between inspiration and the shopping basket.
We are also refining our measurement architecture. For our current focus on the “cooking and eating” category, we are integrating search lift studies to measure exactly how our YouTube branding adverts influence people to search for Ikea kitchens and dining solutions.
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