The Impact of Digital Marketing at IKEA

by

[Name of Writer]

[Name of Institution]

[Date]
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ABSTRACT

Electronic medium of conveying a company’s message and advertisement to the consumer and

customer is known as digital marketing. This is the new marketing trend around the globe for

around a decade now. The traditional ways are eluding with time. Companies are more focused

on digital marketing due to various reasons, benefits, and outcomes. The first and the foremost

advantage that companies gain through digital marketing are feedbacks and statistical calibration

of the responses and results of the campaign. Companies remained in dark to their billions of

dollar investment in marketing previously due to the fact that there was no proper mechanism

and it was not physically possible for a company to investigate each customer to know its reason

of purchase. The digital marketing in the virtual world can easily be calculated and associated

with the amount of traffic generated through the same. This report covers the impact of digital

marketing with respect to the furniture giant i.e. IKEA. IKEA have been a great success story

with presence around the world. It is accounted in the fortune 100 companies and the owner is

considered among the top rich persons around the globe. More than 70 percent of the marketing

done by IKEA is online. This helps analyse the impact of digital marketing on business and

brand image. Different statistical tools were used during the research to gain an insight on the

analysis and research undertaken during the research. Results produced showed that IKEA’s

digital marketing have significant impact consumer’s choice. Further this paper derives some

conclusion and recommendations for IKEA to keep up with the current pace and grow in the

competitive world.

Keywords: IKEA, Digital Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Return on

Investment, Facebook Marketing.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... ii
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. v
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Company Overview ............................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Background ........................................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Problem Statement ................................................................................................................ 3
1.4 Aims and Objectives .............................................................................................................. 4
CHATPER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................... 5
2.1 What is Digital Marketing? .................................................................................................. 6
2.1.1 Difference between Digital and Inbound Marketing ..................................................... 8
2.2 Digital Marketing Working for B2B and B2C ...................................................................... 9
2.3 Benefits of Digital Marketing.............................................................................................. 10
2.3.1 Website Traffic ............................................................................................................. 10
2.3.2 Lead Generation and Content Performance ................................................................ 11
2.3.3 Attribution Modelling................................................................................................... 11
2.4 Content Creation in Digital Marketing............................................................................... 12
2.4.1 Awareness Stage .......................................................................................................... 12
2.4.2 Consideration and Decision Stage............................................................................... 13
2.5 Traits/Responsibilities of Digital Marketing Department/Agency ..................................... 14
2.6 Impact of Digital Marketing on Brand Growth .................................................................. 15
2.6.1 “Going Viral” Concept ............................................................................................... 16
2.6.2 Profile Power ............................................................................................................... 16
2.6.3 Spreading-out Content: Social Signals and Traffic ..................................................... 17
2.7 Digital and Traditional Marketing at IKEA ....................................................................... 18
2.7.1 Social Media Presence ................................................................................................. 18
2.7.2 Outdoor Campaigns ..................................................................................................... 19
2.7.3 IKEA; Facebook; Boost in Store Visits ........................................................................ 19
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CHAPTER 3 – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................... 21

3.1 Research Design ............................................................................................................. 21
3.2 Research Approach ......................................................................................................... 22
3.3 Data Collection Method .................................................................................................. 23
3.4 Research Instrument ....................................................................................................... 25
3.5 Participants and Sample Size.......................................................................................... 25
3.6 Sampling Technique ........................................................................................................ 25
3.7 Data Analysis Method ..................................................................................................... 27
3.8 Ethical Considerations.................................................................................................... 27
3.9 Limitations of the Research ............................................................................................ 28
CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS AND DISCUSSION....................................................................... 29
4.1 Results from Surveys ....................................................................................................... 29
4.1.1 Frequency Distribution and Descriptive Statistics .............................................. 29
4.1.2 Regression Analysis ............................................................................................. 40
4.2 Results from Interviews ................................................................................................... 43
4.2.1 Importance of Digital Marketing to IKEA ........................................................... 43
4.2.2 Kinds of Digital Marketing Platforms used by IKEA .......................................... 44
4.2.3 Effectiveness of using Digital Marketing for IKEA ............................................. 46
4.2.4 IKEA’s Best Digital Marketing Campaign .......................................................... 47
4.2.5 Challenges of Digital Marketing Efforts at IKEA................................................ 48
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ............................................... 50
5.1 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 50
5.2 Recommendations ............................................................................................................... 52
References .................................................................................................................................... 53
Appendix ...................................................................................................................................... 58
A - Informed Consent Form ...................................................................................................... 58
B- Survey Questionnaire ........................................................................................................... 59
C- Interview Questionnaire....................................................................................................... 62
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List of Tables

Table 1 - Gender Characteristics................................................................................................... 29

Table 2 - Age Characteristics ........................................................................................................ 30
Table 3 -Educational Qualification ............................................................................................... 32
Table 4 - Frequency to use Internet to Purchase Products ............................................................ 33
Table 5 - Purchasing IKEA products Online ................................................................................ 34
Table 6 - Marketing Activities of IKEA ....................................................................................... 35
Table 7 - Digital Marketing versus Online Campaigns ................................................................ 36
Table 8 - Print versus Digital Media ............................................................................................. 37
Table 9 - Satisfaction for the IKEA digital marketing efforts ...................................................... 38
Table 10 - Attitude towards IKEA’s online advertising ............................................................... 39
Table 11 - Model Summary .......................................................................................................... 40
Table 12 - Anova .......................................................................................................................... 41
Table 13 - Coefficients.................................................................................................................. 42
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List of Figures

Figure 1 - Gender Characteristics ................................................................................................. 29

Figure 2 - Age Characteristics ...................................................................................................... 31
Figure 3 - Educational Qualification............................................................................................. 32
Figure 4 - Frequency to use Internet to Purchase Products .......................................................... 33
Figure 5 - Purchasing IKEA products Online ............................................................................... 34
Figure 6 - Marketing Activities of IKEA ...................................................................................... 35
Figure 7 - Digital Marketing versus Online Campaigns ............................................................... 36
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Digital marketing is the promotion of brands or products of a company via multiple

mediums of electronic media which differs from the traditional marketing mediums. Digital

marketing enables the company to analyse at real time about what is working and what is not in

terms of marketing and marketing campaigns. Moreover, it is an umbrella for all mediums of

online marketing. Through digital marketing, businesses are leverage via access to various

channels. A normal person nowadays spent twice as much time on the internet as compare to his

or her usage 12 years ago. Recent studies have proved that digital marketing and online

purchasing is the new face of marketing and business. People are now purchasing products

online and rate them accordingly for other consumers to gain help during the decision making

process. This is an easy process for the customer but have a lot of constraints and calibrations

necessary for the company to implement to ensure that right amount of people are targeted in the

respective target market. Digital marketing have become the forefront of marketing in the 21st

century. A company without online presence cannot survive in the competitive market. This has

been realised by many major multinational companies around the global lately and have

switched to advertisement online (Anwar and Daniel, 2015).

1.1 Company Overview

IKEA was founded in 1943 and have grown rapidly since than in the furniture industry.

Its sleek design, portable packaging and innovative ideas have promoted the business and helped

it gain new horizons of success in furniture industry. Ingvar Kamprad, the owner of IKEA is

considered one of the ten richest people on earth with having over 40 billion dollars fortune due

to this idea and company. The company is headquartered in Netherlands, and have estimated
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revenue of over 35.074 Billion euros per annum. Currently IKEA have over 392 stores in over 48

countries across the globe. The basic products and design that have made IKEA popular are

home accessories, kitchen appliances, and ready to assemble furniture. Moreover, the edge

company provides to its customers are low cost, continuous development of product, and

customer friendly operations. Lastly, IKEA is working with various restaurants around the globe

to launch IKEA restaurants where the customers can use the furniture in the restaurant setting

and make a better selection after usage (Ahmad and Saber, 2015).

1.2 Background

Digital marketing have a deep impact on the consumer behaviour, the way people

purchase, the way companies sell products, how brands are made, and the reasons behind the

purchase of a specific products. Previously companies use to market products in a specific

domain (traditional marketing). If a company launched a product, flyers and brochures were

published which were provided to every person in an area or multiple areas (whatever the target

region was) irrespective of the target customer. It was estimated that the effectiveness of flyers

and brochures were 1 out of every 200 flyers. As a matter of fact, the company was never able to

market the right person effectively and efficiently. Moreover, the billboards were introduced

which were a way of marketing a product for a longer period of time to the people who were

moving from a specific area. The billboard was placed in a specific location and the product was

marketed respectively. A company could not easily ascertain the amount of people being

attracted through the billboard (Cassia and Magno, 2015). As a matter of fact, the company may

remain in dark about the decision to either keep the bill board running and bearing the financial

cost or to just end the contract. This is due to the fact that there is no proper evidence available
 3

regarding the fruitfulness of the billboard. The company have although placed the billboard but

no proper mechanism is in place to relate the business success or boost in sales to the

advertisement. Yet there are two probabilities, either the company is marketing the right way and

the boost in sale id due to that, or else the company is advertising in the wrong direction and the

boost of sales is due to other reasons and the company is just incurring extra cost on the

advertisement (Dessart et al., 2015).

The last few decades saw a switch from these traditional marketing methods to digital

marketing. Digital marketing not only enabled the companies to market the product, but also to

target the right people (desired target market). Initially, the digital market was not very popular

due to the fact that not many people were used to of digital world. People would prefer

traditional advertisement where they could have a flyer in their hand to concentrate on. There

were not much evident platforms available in the digital world in the earlier times (the only

solution was email marketing or advertisement of different websites and making of one’s own

website to market). These advertisements could only be seen through the personal computer on a

desktop and hence was not easy to recall as a person was in the market. Moreover, the

technology evolved and every person had a handheld device/ smartphone available at personal

disposal taking the digital marketing to a whole new horizon. Now the digital marketing could be

done to the target market on their smartphones and social media platforms which are abundantly

used by the smartphone users (Strauss, 2016).

1.3 Problem Statement

IKEA is a company which evolved in 1943. Hence the tools used previously by IKEA

were traditional and had a focus on local market only. With the entrance in to the digital world,
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IKEA needs tools and methods to analyse the marketing impact in the digital world. Analysing

the impact of digital marketing on consumer’s choice is still a debateable topic. These is a

requirement of devising a method that is effective in analysing the digital marketing practice and

yet practice in the right direction (right direction means marketing on the correct platforms and

gain the desired outputs for the company). Social media is the evident platform used by majority

of the companies around the globe to market their product. As there are many companies at

global and local level marketing on the social media, there is a need to analyse the constraints

and impact of social media marketing. This is due to the fact that as the platforms are getting

saturated by many key companies in multiple industries, it has become hard to compete and

mandatory to insist presence on the virtual platforms. Moreover, the listing of challenges being

faced in the social media marketing is mandatory to analyse and make recommendations

accordingly.

1.4 Aims and Objectives

The major aim of this research is to:

 Evaluate the impact of digital marketing on consumer choices.

 Develop a method that is most effective in terms of digital marketing practice.

Moreover, the objectives of this research are to:

 Assess the impact of digital marketing with the help of social media.

 Analyze the challenges associated with digital marketing

 Propose suitable recommendations for digital marketeers.

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CHATPER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This literature review will discuss the pros and cons of the digital marketing in addition

to the actual needs and want of the social media marketing. Moreover, emphasis will be laid

upon the current marketing strategies and the coherence of the IKEA digital marketing strategy

with it. Moreover, market predictions for 2017-18 will be assessed according to known digital

marketing experts, enabling to make a proper case for the IKEA (Wirtz and Lovelock, 2016).

The major channels used for digital marketing in the current world scenario are:

 Offline advertisement

 Interactive screens

 Digital/ Smart TV

 Tablets

 Smartphones

 Computers (Ganguly et al., 2017)

Moreover, there are five functions which are needed to be understood for effective digital

marketing. These functions are:

Attract: Without proper attraction, other functions of marketing are quite irrelevant. This is the

most basic part to start with while making a marketing plan or strategy. Quality traffic generation

is one of the major tasks for the people who are trying to build a better image.

Convert: Once the attraction activity is performed with care and attention, the customer gets

attracted towards the brand, the next step is to convert the same into lead. A lead can be

generated through offer, landing page, and promotional offer. This will help the company to

grow systematically through the marketing process (Lin, 2017).

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Link: Once the lead is brought closer through reconciliation, it is important to bring the same

closer to sale. The most evident way to make this link is through remaining close to the customer

who could be done via email marketing, lead nutrition and social media.

Sales: the sales team have the responsibility to make the potential lead convert into a happy

customer. As the link has already been created between the brand and the customer, a

salesperson should have a consultative approach towards the customer.

Analysis: Once the sales are done, it is important to know the customer’s experience. This

experience not only helps the company gain feedbacks on its product but also facilitate other

people in their decision making process. This analysis helps the company with ROI, campaign

benefits, and other tweaks required by the marketing strategy (Schlegelmilch, 2016).

2.1 What is Digital Marketing?

The question arises what actually is digital marketing? Ranging from company’s own

website to online assets branding, online brochures, email marketing, and digital advertising,

there is a whole lot of planning, tactics and assets which fall under the broader spectrum of

digital marketing. The most common assets of digital marketing are:

 Online brochures.

 Online coverage.

 Social media channels.

 Info graphics.

 E-books.

 Blog posts.

 Website (Siddique, 2014).

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Moreover, the known tactics of digital marketing are:

 SEO: Search engine optimisation is the process of optimising the websites, social media

pages ranking among the rest when a person searches for specific keywords. This helps

increase the ‘organic’ traffic of the website. For example, the company business is related

to local food restaurant. The quality of SEO is to optimise local searches, yet when a

person searches for local food points, the company lies on the front line of the search

results (Samuel and Sarprasatha, 2016).

 Content Marketing: In order to generate traffic, brand awareness, and leads; new content

and assets are created online. For example creating of new blogs, new social media

presence, developing of a small internet running commercial, or additional pages for the

new product launches (Raimi et al., 2015).

 Inbound marketing: this marketing tactics is used to funnel customers through delighting,

closing, converting, and attracting customers via online content of their interest.

 Social media marketing: Marketing on prominent social media platform and displaying

the company’s content in a fashion which becomes obvious for the customers and hence

help increase leads, generate traffic, and increase brand awareness.

 Pay-per-click: This is a simple way of paying the publisher for each click an organic user

make on your website, helping to generate traffic. One of the most common PPC is

through the Google Ad-Words. This helps the company to generate traffic of customer’s

who are really interested in the product and the company only have to pay for those

customers who click on the advertisement, yet are probably interested.

 Affiliate marketing and native advertising: affiliate marketing gains performance-based

advertisement just like the commissioning plan. This is gained by a third-party for
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promoting a business and gains commission over the amount of percentage advertised.

On the contrary, native advertising is done on social media platforms which are free and

usually not incurs much cost (Pauceanu, 2016).

 Marketing automation: This is software which exists in the midst of digital marketing

enabling the automation of marketing actions. The automation is usually done for specific

repetitive functions. For example, emails, website actions, and social media.

 Email marketing and Online PR: Email marketing is done to attract the target customers

who are interested in the product and product specific content is emailed to the same to

attract more attention, yet resulting in the purchase of the same. Moreover, the PR refers

to securing of the customer’s base gained online through creating relations much more

like the traditional PR which is created in online space (Anwar and Daniel, 2015).

2.1.1 Difference between Digital and Inbound Marketing

Although the two seems similar on the surface, but have wide difference underneath the

strategy and other related tools. The basic difference between digital and inbound marketing is

the way in which they both operate. Digital market does not differentiate in pull and push factors

of marketing, yet on the contrary; inbound marketing is push marketing tactic. The outbound

marketing tactic is aimed at putting out the message or rolling out the word to as many people as

possible regardless of being relevant or not (Leeflang et al., 2014). This enables to gain new

customers who are although not interested in the products but may purchase one in the future. On

the other hand, inbound marketers are usually concentrated on the target market and give them

priority to get robust and efficient results in terms of time and money. Digital marketing as

referred by Tiago and Veríssimo (2014), is an umbrella which have all the broad spectrums of
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inbound, outbound marketing, and any other marketing tool, method or tactic which could be

utilised online (Abed et al., 2015).

2.2 Digital Marketing Working for B2B and B2C

Digital marketing is a viable option for any business irrespective of industry. Regardless

of what the company is selling and what the product is, digital marketing helps build the persona

of the product in customer’s mind through the creation of valuable online content. However, it is

pertinent to know that all businesses do not have the same application of digital marketing

(Stokes, 2015).

According to Cassia and Magno (2015) for a company with B2B (business to business)

characteristics, the online activity is usually related to lead generation and through the end point

where someone have to speak to a sales person. In other words, highest quality leads are

generated and encouraged to contact and then is communicated through the sales person who

converts the lead into sale. In B2B the major focus apart from the website is channels focused on

business like LinkedIn where the probable leads are online. Secondly for the companies have

B2C characteristics, the basic target (depending upon the price range) is to develop a lead,

convert it into a customer through the marketing strategy with essence that the customer never

have to speak to a sales person. For this purpose, leads are not looked at in the traditional sense.

Instead, the concentration is given to ensure a speedy buyer journey from potential customer to

lead to customer with successful purchase. In other words, the process is speed up from the

customer landing on the website to making a purchase. Channels like Pinterest and Instagram are

suitable for B2C companies rather than the business-focused platforms (Karpova et al., 2015).
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2.3 Benefits of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing allows the marketer to see results in real-time unlike majority of the

traditional offline marketing strategies. It is hard to ascertain that how many people looked at the

advertisement a company have placed in the newspaper and how many have actually thought or

talked about it. Hence, there is no perfect or appropriate way to ascertain the sales to the same

advertisement. In such a case, the companies are usually making assumptions and compare the

existing sales after the advertisement with the previous sales which may not be the same all

around the year due to other various factors other than advertisement. On the other hand, Digital

marketing ensures that the company gains and knows the real-time return on investment (ROI)

for the marketing efforts made by the same. Following examples will help deduce these gains

and results (Hutter et al., 2013).

2.3.1 Website Traffic

Digital analytical software like Hub Spot can be used to analyse the exact number of

people who have visited the company’s website. This software also helps view the amount and

the specific pages each user viewed. Keeping a close tab on website traffic is very important and

the most fruitful benefit of digital marketing. This provides the exact number of people who are

visiting the company’s webpage along with the exact thing they are viewing and what is the

major area which hits the website the most (Grishikashvili et al., 2014). This helps the company

to devise marketing strategy and plan according to the target market which can easily be

ascertained by the traffic on the web. The intelligence collected through analytical software helps

to prioritise the channels and spend less or more time on the same according to the analysis. For

example if the traffic being generated is less than 10 % then there is a need to concentrate more
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on SEO to increase the organic traffic. As compare to the offline marketing, it is easier to

ascertain the number of people interacting with the brand and one can easily target the probable

consumers (Leeflang et al., 2014).

2.3.2 Lead Generation and Content Performance

For the case of simplicity, imagine a brochure being prepared for a new product and

dropped in each person’s letter box around the entire area. How would a company estimate the

total number of people who have opened the brochure and how many seems to be interested?

This is the most tedious task which is usually based on assumptions in traditional market and has

uncertain results. In case of online marketing, the results are easy and the leads are generated

swiftly with the access of every person to the online brochure. This not only enables the

company to know the number of people making the purchase but also generates leads of the

potential customers (Tiago and Veríssimo, 2014).

2.3.3 Attribution Modelling

Combined with right tools and technology, an effective digital marketing technique

allows a company to trace back the sale of a customer right back to its initial point. This in

digital marketing is called the attribution modelling which helps the company to analyse the way

and procedures which helped the company to make the sale. These trends are quite generic and

can be applied to other users with better efficiency and effectiveness (Royle and Laing, 2014).

This connecting dots activity between the sales and marketing is very important.

According to Royle and Laing (2014), a 20 percent growth rate is achieved by those companies

who have an aligned sales and marketing as compare to other companies with lack of alignment
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(have a decline of 4 percent growth each year). Digital technologies and its proper use can ensure

improve in customer’s journey through the purchase lifecycle and this improvement can

guarantee a better business prospect and result (Hudson and Thal, 2013).

2.4 Content Creation in Digital Marketing

There are different stages of digital marketing. Each stage requires a different type of

content. Moreover, this content is also influenced by the type of target market and the people

addressed. Content should be created in accordance with the buyer’s persona helping the

company to select the best suited theme. The major focus should be on the challenges and goals

of the audience with respect to the company and product. For example, if the target market need

clean water for consumption, focus can be made in the marketing on clean, fresh, treated, and

mineralised water (Confos et al., 2016). This focus will give an added goal acquirement to the

customers helping them in the decision making process. During the mapping of content

procedure special consideration is given to the following two facts:

 How close is the person to the purchase of the product?

 What are the characteristics of the consumer?

There are three stages for the consumer i.e. awareness stage, consideration stage, and

decision stage. These three stages are further discussed according to the content creation in the

following sections.

2.4.1 Awareness Stage

This is the stage where the awareness about the brand is increased in the masses. This is

usually designed for a new product which is being launched or already launched in the market.
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People need to know about the product before using or consuming it (Ahmed et al., 2015). This

stage makes effort to enlighten the customers with the help of:

 Blogs: Blogs are written by the company to produce organic traffic which would help the

company to build customer base and induce awareness in the same. When paired with

strong keyword and SEO strategy it has a very positive effect on the organic traffic.

 Info graphics: These help increase the chances of a company or a product to be found

online and are easily shareable.

 Short videos: these short videos are easily shareable over the social media platforms and

helps build customer base through complete attention by the customer for a specific

period of time (Tiago and Veríssimo, 2014).

2.4.2 Consideration and Decision Stage

This is the stage where the customer is aware of the brand and is considering for the

purchase. In such a case the most fruitful three elements are e-books, research reports, and

webinars. Although all these three are purely educational purpose elements but can be useful in

moulding the decision making of the customer. People believe in what they see and read from a

book. Once all the pros and cons are written down in a book with recommendation, it would gain

more popularity (Royle and Laing, 2014).

Moreover, the decision stage is helped through case studies and testimonials. The existing

customers write testimonials and their life experience is written in case studies help others in

brand selection and decision making. According to Knowles et al. (2015), case studies presented

on the website can be a viable solution to gain customer’s trust and the trust of potential

customers. Moreover, in case of writing short reports, testimonials are the most viable solution.
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In case of a clothing brand, these testimonials can be in form of photos posted by customers

wearing the brand.

2.5 Traits/Responsibilities of Digital Marketing Department/Agency

Digital marketing in any organisation is usually outsourced to different agencies that are

expert in this field and have a strong background of recursive digital marketing, yet some

companies prefer in-house departments for digital marketing. There are several things which are

to be considered while running a digital marketing campaign (Hudson and Thal, 2013).

 Customer’s behaviour: the digital marketers should have an insight on the customer’s

behaviour and attitude. Marketing is all about communicating with the customers. If the

marketer is not able to analyse the customer correctly, he or she may not be able to

produce fruitful marketing results.

 Structure documentation and process: This is similar to a business venture. Everything

should be in order and structured to make the most out of the marketing campaign. As a

matter of fact, these marketing campaigns allow input of a lot of data and information

about the customer and the market scenario. If they are not properly documented, the

company might fail to properly market (Confos et al., 2016).

 Right tools: According to Chaffey and Smith (2017), this is among the most important

consideration for a marketing campaign. Imagine turning a wrench to open the chocolate

jar. It would have a devastating result. Correct business and marketing tools appropriate

for the purpose should be used to make the results useful and cost effective.

 Consistency: The marketing campaign should be consistent. A single downhill day

should not ascertain the whole marketing campaign. According to Hudson and Thal
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(2013), an average time required to see a consistent organic traffic on the website is

somewhere between 5 to 6 months. Patience is the key in this case. Hence it take months

until a company sees return on investment in digital marketing.

 Quality: Although it is easy to write random blogs and posts, the digital marketing

requires quality scripts and work delivered by the marketer on the website. If the quality

of the work posted online is compromised, it brings an overall bad image for the

company as well as the brand. Moreover, Google prefers the highly remarkable content

the customers desire, yet brings that up in the search.

 Experience: and experienced marketer is always a good marketer. As a matter of fact, the

experienced person knows how to deal with different situations. While considering a

marketer, the company should ensure that the same have a relevant marketing experience

in the digital world. There are trials and errors involved in every work. Once a marketer

is experienced, he or she have gone through whole process of trial and error and is

refined enough to hit the target market in stipulated time period (Stokes, 2015).

2.6 Impact of Digital Marketing on Brand Growth

Digital marketing have a deep impact on brand growth and development. According to

Grishikashvili et al. (2014), brands and digital marketing are closely linked together nowadays.

There are small steps which can be taken and can impact the business in a better fashion. These

small steps which can contribute bigger benefits are starting a blog, writing publications,

managing social media, and optimising website design of the company. These contents are useful

in many ways. Nowadays, people usually believe on the word of other people. The traditional

marketing have made the people more focused and biased about the marketing where the
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company markets a product and people see at the advantages provided by the company as a mere

dream. In the digital world, people usually look for critics, blogs, review, and responses of

people having personal experience regarding the subject or brand. This supports verily in

decision making (for potential customers) and building up of brand image (for company) (Royle

and Laing, 2014).

2.6.1 “Going Viral” Concept

The concept of going viral is evident in the virtual world. This concept was very vibrant

and exciting in the early ages but now the new terminologies like hashtags, trending posts, click-

bait, buzz, signals, and memes have emerged. These concepts are also the breakdown of “going

viral” concept and have evident impact on the market. The basic theme of all these concepts is to

develop news and spread it as quickly as possible. Once a thing is viral it goes beyond

boundaries and beyond the expected amount of viewers resulting in an extreme marketing. For a

company or a brand, it is noteworthy that people and customers usually converge to a brand

through its popular content in the online world. Hence, viral contents are very fruitful but a big

challenge to create (Lebherz and Hartmann, 2017).

2.6.2 Profile Power

The most important thing for a company is its business profile online. People usually

judge the company over its profile available online and this facilitate them in their decision

making process. According to Baker (2014), consumer will not only view business profile in

aiding the decision making process but will do the same recursively in search of their required
 17

objective. Hence the companies should ensure that the profiles are good content, information,

entertaining, authentic, and clean (Helgeson et al., 2015).

2.6.3 Spreading-out Content: Social Signals and Traffic

Marketers usually consider the brand image as a sum of all the content published and

produced. This concept usually fails when it comes to consumer. Marketers are seeing all the

content and making their opinion upon it. Instead, consumer prefers to look at a few content

online and make their decision upon the content they have viewed. In such a case, the most

important factor is the social signal and traffic produced across the content. ‘Social signal’

encompasses all the comments, likes, shares, and retweets an individual online do for a particular

reason or another. These social signals are quite helpful in judging how powerful the brand is.

Moreover, this ‘social signal’ also helps in knowing and acknowledging the efficacy of a

campaign. Hence digital marketing campaigns can be altered, renewed, re-planned, or entirely

changed with respect to the response i.e. ‘social signal’. Brand image is not only related to the

content produced but also what customers do with it. In case where both ends are successful, the

brand image builds up positively (Hutter et al., 2013).

In addition to the brand image, digital marketing also facilitates through direct

communication with the potential customers and previous customers. As these are ‘real’

conversations, yet have a permanent effect and impact on the brand image. These real-time

conversations should be done with extreme pre-caution and care. As the company tweets,

comment, or share its views, this leaves an image in the consumers mind which might not erode

if have a negative impact (Ahmed et al., 2015).

 18

2.7 Digital and Traditional Marketing at IKEA

Marketing and advertising constitutes a handsome amount of annual expenses of an

organisation. TV has been the most dominant way of marketing until the digital marketing came

to lime light. IKEA being the world’s largest home furnishing retailer is one of the pioneer

adopted of the social media and digital marketing with basic emphasis on digital catalogues

which have become the core component of IKEA online marketing strategy (Lebherz and

Hartmann, 2017). IKEA’s current marketing strategy has remain consistent and irrespective of its

physical growth in terms of more outlets around the globe. IKEA have created social media

pages as country specific and the website returns with specific results furnished specially for the

customer based on the region form where he or she is accessing (Ito et al., 2015).

2.7.1 Social Media Presence

IKEA have an evident presence on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and

Google+ are the prominent platforms which are used by IKEA with country specific pages. On

each IKEA country specific Facebook page, there are over 150,000 fans with the highest fan rate

on the USA page i.e. 3.4 million fans. Online customer engagement is increased through posting

updated information, YouTube videos and different photo albums. Moreover, Twitter feeds are

also country specific with the highest followers on USA page i.e. 2.2 million. Twitter

engagement is increased through celebration of different days at IKEA (for example brings your

own friends day (BYOFD)). Apart from the social media platforms which are generic, the most

important platform used by IKEA is Pinterest. This platforms provides sharing of photos easy.

IKEA is a furniture brand and needs to display its photos and catalogues every now and then.
 19

This visual presentation is done in the digital world through Pinterest, targeting customers in

Canada, USA, UK, and other countries (Helgeson et al., 2015).

2.7.2 Outdoor Campaigns

Although 70 percent of the marketing done by IKEA is online, still it have an out of

home (OOH) marketing concept for its customers through use of high engagement outdoor

campaigns like 3D panels, Indoor gardens, Billboard fitted wardrobes, and Storage units in metro

stations. These marketing techniques can be considered out-of-the-box thinking due to its unique

style and trait. As a matter of fact, the 3D panels use live actors who portray their daily life in a

3D panel across the street using IKEA products. Moreover, the indoor gardens in London are

deployed in an indoor environment like railway stations and malls. These gardens consist of

IKEA products designed and installed in a proper fashion to facilitate the customers by using

them in real-time (Stokes, 2015). This helps the customers in the decision making process and

have a personal touch of the product before purchase. Moreover, the billboard fitted wardrobes

are additive attraction to the bus stops where people are usually idle waiting for the bus. The

wardrobes are nicely fitted on the end engaging more customer daily. Lastly, the storage units at

metro stations across china facilitates customers by using the cabinets for storage purpose and

check the reliability of the product (Chaffey and Smith, 2017).

2.7.3 IKEA; Facebook; Boost in Store Visits

Ikea in the beginning of 2014 participated in a research project carried out by prospect

and Vizeum in collaboration with EE and Facebook. Facebook usage and EE data was analysed

over a period of two weeks and calibrated accordingly. This Facebook marketing was done
 20

through geo-targeted newsfeed enabling local target market to view the advertisement in their

news feeds. The campaign hit an approximately 172,000 people in the area resulting in an

average increase of 11 percent in the store visit by the customers in this specific region. The

research was measured over a two week span about the people who saw IKEA advert on

Facebook. The biggest impact of this marketing was on the age group between 22 to 25 years old

i.e. 31 percent increase in store visit from this specific age group. Furthermore, the age group 26

to 35 years old have an impact of up to 11 percent. The return on investment from these

customers on IKEA was 1:6 in ratio against their media and advert spending on Facebook. These

advertisements were made during December 2013 to January 2014 (Baier et al., 2015).

According to Chaffey and Smith (2017), the basic focus of this advert via Facebook was

to target people and reach statistically robust number of traffic and customers with physical

presence. The statistics mentioned before are evident enough to support this proposition.

Moreover, these statistics clearly signifies the effectiveness and efficiency of digital marketing. It

is a clear indication that the method and applications of marketing have transformed to digital

world from the traditional marketing and TVC techniques. Previously people were not certain

about the results of digital marketing but it has become a fact now that digital marketing is a

competent marketing strategy which could be adopted with statistical significance. Moreover,

these strategies can be calculated and calibrated at real-time to gain robust and effective results

(Ito et al., 2015).

 21

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Design

The two most common types of research that were used extensively by academic

researchers were qualitative research design and quantitative research design (Myers, Well and

Lorch, 2010). As noted in Creswell (2013), the development of a relevant research design in the

study is significant for researcher to understand the detailed research outline, but allows

researcher to evaluate the process of collecting data. On the other hand, the effective use of

quantitative research design in a study allow researcher for collecting as well as using some type

of quantitative information that include numbers, and that can be easily tested by means of using

some statistical techniques (Creswell, 2013). Contrasted with quantitative research design, the

qualitative research design is more of a subjective in its nature where the researcher tends to use

exploratory or unstructured methodology. Also, the qualitative research design depends on small

amounts of data for offering significant insights to understand the research issue. The data

however may be small, but it is detailed and thorough (Neuman, 2016).

Robson and McCartan (2016) compared and contrasted both qualitative and quantitative

research design where it was stated that the key aim of qualitative design is focused on collecting

the verbal information rather than focusing on the measurement criteria. As a result, the analysis

of qualitative research design is conducted in an interpretive and subjective manner; even the

researcher can use a diagnostic method to analyze this data. On the other hand, researchers have

also discussed the use of quantitative research design in research where Stratford and Bradshaw

(2016) clearly stated that the focus of this type of research design is placed on numerical

information or numbers. This is because the data gathered from quantitative study is aimed at

counting and classifying the information at the same time creating the statistical models and
 22

figures that aids to explain what has been observed in the process of data collection. Experts in

quantitative research designs are still objectively separated from the subject matter because of

the fact that this type of research design is more objective in an approach that seeks accurate

analysis and measurement of the ideas to respond to research findings.

For an existing study, both qualitative and quantitative research designs have been used

for various reasons. First, it has provided a researcher with both subjective as well as objective

information that could be tested or analyzed using some statistical techniques and interpretations,

as discussed above. Secondly, data can be analyzed within a limited period of time by collecting

information in both of these formats. Finally, the use of both research designs almost eliminates

the bias that could occur when analyzing data that could be possible if a single research design

was used.

3.2 Research Approach

Many researchers have defined a research approach as a procedure or plan that consists of

a variety of steps on a broad basis for a detailed method of gathering data, analysis and

interpretation (Ary, Jacobs, Sorensen and Walker, 2013). On the other hand, Zou, Sunindijo and

Dainty (2014) in their study stated that the two most common research methods are inductive

and deductive research approaches. In view of the inductive research method, the researcher

begins to conduct research by first collecting the necessary data that is most relevant to the

research field being investigated. After sufficient data has been collected through the research

process, the researcher then works to develop a theory that could possibly explain the pattern of

the study (Zou, Sunindijo and Dainty, 2014). When using this research approach, the research

process begins with examinations, as the researcher moves from specific experience to a more
 23

general set of plans with regard to those experiences. In contrast to this, researchers who take the

deductive research approach tend to take the measures previously described for the inductive

study while reversing their order. The research process in the deductive research approach begins

by developing the social theory that the researcher finds interesting in the research area in

question, but the researcher test the consequences of the theory of the study (Walliman, 2015). It

implies that researchers move from more general to more specific level when using deductive

research approach.

As the current study uses both qualitative and quantitative research designs, the research

rather address both inductive and deductive research approaches in the current study. The data

collected from quantitative surveys is best suited to the deductive research approach while the

data collected from semi-structured interviews is best suited for the inductive research approach

as the researcher searches patterns over the interviews and understanding these patterns by

means of hypothesizing about them.

3.3 Data Collection Method

According to Flick (2015), data collection in a research study tends to reflect the overall

process that measures and collects data which was gathered and also addresses the problems that

might arise in research. Many researchers have discussed various data collection methods that

reflect the data as it is necessary to collect information about the study (Taylor, Bogdan &

DeVault, 2015). Choosing the appropriate data collection method is important because invalid

and inappropriate information could be collected if the method is not accurate. Primary and

secondary data collection is two common methods for collecting data for research.
 24

According to Hewson and Laurent (2016), primary data is the type of information that involves

data collection from mainly first-hand sources and from where the data has not been collected

earlier for research purpose, or it was not used in other research studies. In contrast to primary

data, the secondary data collection method is one where data or information is gathered from

secondary sources. Secondary sources are one where the information is published and that

information is also used somewhere else for some other research purpose. In current study, the

researcher makes use of both primary and secondary data collection method where interviews

and surveys were conducted in the selected organization that is IKEA. Surveys were conducted

from consumers of IKEA brand while interviews were conducted from digital marketing

managers at the company. For the current study, surveys were used to collect original data as the

data was collected mainly by online. Therefore, an online questionnaire was developed to collect

data to determine the impact of digital marketing at IKEA. Surveys were useful for collecting

data as more respondents from the target group can participate in the study. Performing surveys

also helped to collect large amounts of data within a certain period of time. Also, interviews

provided useful insights from within the organizational digital marketing practices. In contrast to

primary data, secondary data is also used in the study for the purpose of having background

information on impact of digital marketing in general. As a result, the researcher used various

sources of extension data that contained published articles, newspapers, books, press

conferences, conferences, etc.

 25

3.4 Research Instrument

As stated by Creswell (2013), the selection of relevant research instrument to gather data

in a study is very important because it reflects the tool with which data is collected. One of the

most used research instruments is questionnaires that many researchers support to gather data in

research in practice (Liu, 2016). In this study, a survey questionnaire was designed and used to

gather useful and relevant information for the study. This questionnaire was distributed online to

collect research information online during a possible period that can reach the maximum number

of respondents. In addition to this, a semi-structured interview questionnaire was also designed

to gather data from digital marketing managers working in IKEA.

3.5 Participants and Sample Size

For this study, the target population consisted of customers and employees of the IKEA

Company for the purpose to determine the impact of digital marketing on company’s operations

and performance. Therefore, the elements designed in both survey and interview questionnaire

were based on the fact that they could possibly provide the desired results that a researcher

wanted to achieve. With regards to the sample size, the selected sample for surveys is 200 while

the sample size for interviews included 5 managers of the company working in the IT department

and who are responsible for designing, maintaining and implementing digital marketing tools for

the organization.

3.6 Sampling Technique

Sampling is a process of selecting a group from the population that will participate in the

research because it is not possible to include every member of the population in the research
 26

study. This is why researchers undergo the sampling process to select the group that will be most

representative of the entire population. Two most commonly used types of sampling include

probability sampling and non-probability sampling. It is important to consider that both of these

sampling methods are not mutually exclusive because they can be used for different purposed at

different points in a research study. Discussing the probability sampling, every member of the

population is given equal chance to be selected in the research. However, this type of sampling

involves selecting respondents at random from the sampling frame after deciding on the sample

size. According to Lewis (2015), the probability sampling is more of a theoretical orientation

where the research is positivist and the method used in the study is quantitative. In contrast to

probability sampling, the population is not known completely in the non-probability sampling as

a result of which it becomes difficult to determine the individual probabilities in the population.

Here, the researcher most likely uses his common sense or ease to select the sample; however,

efforts are made to prevent any sort of biasness while keeping the sample size representative of

the entire population.

In the current study, both probability and non-probability sampling has been used

because there are two different groups of population where sample needs to be selected

(customers and managers). Among the various types of probability sampling, simple random

sample is used for qualitative design that is interviews. In addition to this, conveniences

sampling is used for quantitative surveys which is an important type of non-probability sampling.

In this type, customers of IKEA were allowed to volunteer to be included in this research while

this group of respondents is easier to get for researcher.

 27

3.7 Data Analysis Method

According to Ott and Longnecker (2015), data analysis is one of the most important

levels of research process that is carried out after the necessary information is collected using a

variety of data collection methods. It is one of the most important levels of choosing suitable

technique to analyze data that can help to achieve the proposed results of the study. With regards

to current research, data is analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences where

frequency tables and graphs were used to present findings. Also, regression analysis test is

performed on quantitative data through SPSS to find out the impact of digital marketing at

IKEA. On the other hand, the qualitative data is analyzed using content analysis where the

researcher interpreted the important findings gathered from interviews. Carrying out content

analysis helps researcher to find out the most important themes emerged from interviews while

presenting these findings in a way by means of researcher’s interpretation of those themes.

3.8 Ethical Considerations

The ethical aspects followed in the current study were aimed to protect the rights of

participants who were the part of this research. As this research involves both qualitative and

quantitative aspects of research, the principles of code of ethics that follow the study are

respectful for individuals who respect their decision-making and maintain their esteem. The

investigator also aimed at minimizing the risks involved and maximizing benefits for

respondents who participated in the study. In addition, the participants for this study were

selected from the group from which the study could benefit from. For example, conducting

surveys from customers of IKEA was found to be meaningful because they are the target

audience of the digital marketing strategy and campaign of organization. Similarly, conducting
 28

interviews from managers was important to know about how the organization sees digital

marketing and its likely impact on the company’s performance. Apart from this, a consent form

has been designed and signed by the respondents in order to avoid any future risk and damage

related to the respondent’s participation. Not only did respondents were allowed to quit

whenever they want, they were also not forced to participate or answer questions asked to fill in

surveys.

3.9 Limitations of the Research

The researcher also faced some limitations in the research process. The first limitation is

time where researcher has to carry out the study within specified time period. Another limitation

is related to the cost. Due to budget constraints, an online questionnaire was designed instead of

distributing questionnaires manually to the proposed respondents of the study. Another limitation

is that the researcher faced some difficulties in getting comprehensive answers to the

questionnaires. The number of questionnaires that were sent to be filled by customers was nearly

250 out of which only 200 questionnaires were sent back. Because of this, there is a limitation in

the sample size that might be increased if researcher conducts face-to-face surveys.
 29

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Results from Surveys

This section discusses the results of surveys gathered from surveys. As discussed in

previous chapter, the surveys were conducted from consumers who purchase IKEA product.

Therefore, the major purpose to conduct surveys is to find out the impact of digital marketing of

IKEA.

4.1.1 Frequency Distribution and Descriptive Statistics

Below are the results of surveys which are shown in the form of frequency distribution

tables and descriptive statistics.

Your Gender
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid Male 136 68.0 68.0 68.0
Female 64 32.0 32.0 100.0
Total 200 100.0 100.0
Table 1 - Gender Characteristics

Figure 1 - Gender Characteristics

 30

The first question in the survey questionnaire was related to determining the gender

characteristics of survey respondents. Asking this question was considered important as it can

entail the proportion of consumers who use IKEA products. Even though the all consumers who

purchase IKEA products were not included in the study, but this can gave a rough idea about

whether there are large number of males or females representing IKEA consumers. Therefore,

the study found that there were more number of males who have participated in the study as 68%

males represented the total sample of the study. On the other hand, 32% females who were

consumers of IKEA products participated in the research. These figures might imply that

majority of the Polish immigrants who are the customers of IKEA company included males as

compared to females.

Your Age
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid 18-25 years 34 17.0 17.0 17.0

26-35 years 28 14.0 14.0 31.0

36-45 years 52 26.0 26.0 57.0
46-50 years 40 20.0 20.0 77.0
Above 50 years 46 23.0 23.0 100.0
Total 200 100.0 100.0
Table 2 - Age Characteristics
 31

Figure 2 - Age Characteristics

When conducting surveys, researcher also asked respondents about the age range in

which they fall. The survey results found that majority of the IKEA consumers who participated

in the study were 36-45 years that represented 26% of total population of the study. In addition to

this, 23% IKEA consumers who were part of the study were aged above 50 years. However, 20%

respondents who made up 40 participants in the sample were aged 46-50 years, 17% participants

were aged 18-25 years, and finally 14% participants were aged 26-35 years. These figures

showed that there was less number of IKEA consumers who were aged above 18 years but below

25 years. In contrast, most of the IKEA consumers were aged above 36 years but below 45 years

respectively.
 32

Your educational qualification

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid Undergraduate 73 36.5 36.5 36.5
Graduate 57 28.5 28.5 65.0
Post-graduate 40 20.0 20.0 85.0
Diploma 20 10.0 10.0 95.0
Other 10 5.0 5.0 100.0
Total 200 100.0 100.0
Table 3 -Educational Qualification

Figure 3 - Educational Qualification

The surveys also depicted the educational background of respondents who participated in

the study. Determining the educational qualification was important because it can entail the

cohort of educational background of IKEA consumers. Therefore, the results found that most of

the IKEA consumers who participated in the study were undergraduates that represented 36.5%

of total sample size. In addition to this, 28.5% respondents were graduates while 20%

respondents who make up 40 people were having post-graduate degrees. The surveys also found
 33

that 10% respondents were having diplomas while only 5% IKEA consumers who were part of

this study were having other educational qualifications, such as certificate courses etc.

How often do you use internet / mobile devices to search for purchasing products?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid Daily 79 39.5 39.5 39.5
More than two times a week 31 15.5 15.5 88.0
Weekly 26 13.0 13.0 61.0
More than three times a month 23 11.5 11.5 72.5
Monthly 17 8.5 8.5 48.0
Other 24 12.0 12.0 100.0
Total 200 100.0 100.0
Table 4 - Frequency to use Internet to Purchase Products

Figure 4 - Frequency to use Internet to Purchase Products

One of the determinants to analyze the success rate of company’s digital marketing

efforts is related to the frequency of customer purchase from a list of products offered by

company. Therefore, consumers of IKEA were asked about how often they use digital channels

to search for purchasing the products. The results found that major portion of survey participants

that represented 39.5% tend to use digital channels daily to search for products they want to

purchase. Similarly, 13% respondents tend to use internet or mobile devices weekly when

searching to purchase products, 15.5% access these digital channels for more than two times per
 34

week for making online purchases. Only 8.5% respondents access to these channels on monthly

basis.

How often do you buy IKEA products online?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid Not at all often 12 6.0 6.0 6.0
Slightly often 11 5.5 5.5 11.5
Moderately often 36 18.0 18.0 29.5
Quite often 63 31.5 31.5 61.0
Extremely often 78 39.0 39.0 100.0
Total 200 100.0 100.0
Table 5 - Purchasing IKEA products Online

Figure 5 - Purchasing IKEA products Online

After determining the frequency of online purchases among consumers, they were

specifically inquired about making online purchases of IKEA products. The results of study

found that most of the respondents that represented 31.5% quite often purchase IKEA products

from online marketplace. In addition to this, 39% were extremely often engaged in purchasing

IKEA products online while only 5.5% respondents slightly buy IKEA products from online

platform.
 35

IKEA must use different online activities for its marketing efforts
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid Yes 110 55.0 55.0 55.0
No 54 27.0 27.0 82.0
Sometimes 36 18.0 18.0 100.0
Total 200 100.0 100.0
Table 6 - Marketing Activities of IKEA

Figure 6 - Marketing Activities of IKEA

One of the important questions to ask from respondents, and that might have easily

gauged their choice towards marketing efforts of IKEA, is related to determining whether the

company should undergo various online activities to conduct its marketing efforts. The results

found that 55% respondents that forms majority of survey participants stated that the company

must undergo such online activities that could help them achieving longer term benefits. On the

other hand, 27% respondents stated ‘No’ to the statement asked. This might be because of the

reason that these consumers prefer to purchase IKEA products in physical marketplace instead of

using online platform. Finally, 18% respondents stated that the company must sometimes engage

in online activities to attract it customers for its online marketing efforts.

 36

The digital marketing communications are more appealing as compared to offline marketing
campaigns of IKEA.
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid Strongly disagree 4 2.0 2.0 2.0
Disagree 26 13.0 13.0 15.0
Neutral 38 19.0 19.0 34.0
Agree 114 57.0 57.0 91.0
Strongly agree 18 9.0 9.0 100.0
Total 200 100.0 100.0
Table 7 - Digital Marketing versus Online Campaigns

Figure 7 - Digital Marketing versus Online Campaigns

The surveys also determine the consumers’ perception whether the digital marketing

communications of IKEA appeals them more when compared to the offline marketing campaigns

of the company. It was found that 57% respondents that make up greater part of survey

participants agreed to the statement asked as this group of respondents find digital marketing

communications more appealing as compared to offline marketing campaigns of IKEA. On the

other hand, 14% respondents in total disagreed to the statement asked while 19% respondents

held neutral to the question asked depicted in above table.

 37

Respondent’s agreement/disagreement with statements

I don’t prefer The use of The availability I mostly Digital
the print ads or digital tools of IKEA’s respond to marketing
Television allowed the use online marketing efforts of IKEA
commercials of online marketing messages has changed my
much to get the information campaigns has communicated views of
brand awareness made me more through social particular
informed about media than product
products when more traditional
making formats such as
purchasing television and
decisions radio

N Valid 200 200 200 200 200

Missing 0 0 0 0 0
Mean 3.5200 3.5800 3.6100 3.7700 3.6700
Mode 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00
Std. Deviation .98715 .94236 1.00146 .84894 .93028
Variance .974 .888 1.003 .721 .865
Minimum 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Maximum 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00
Table 8 - Print versus Digital Media

The above table shows the statistics including mean, mode. Standard deviation and

variance that are related to the respondents’ agreement pertaining to the different statement asked

related to the effectiveness of digital marketing versus traditional marketing. It must be noted

that a five point Likert scale was given for this questionnaire item where minimum value is 1

(strongly disagree) while maximum value is 5 (strongly agree). Firstly, respondents were asked

about their agreement or disagreement about whether they prefer the print ads or Television

commercials much to get the brand awareness. The mean value for this item is 3.52 while the

mode value is 4. This shows that majority of the respondents were agreed that they do not prefer

the print ads or Television commercials much to get the brand awareness. Respondents were also

asked about whether the use of digital tools allowed the use of online information. The mean

value for this item is 3.58 while the mode value is 4. This shows that most of the respondents
 38

were agreed that the use of digital tools allowed the use of online information more effectively.

On the other hand, the results also confirmed that the availability of IKEA’s online marketing

campaigns has made me more informed about products when making purchasing decisions as the

mean value for this item is 3.6100 and mode value is also 4. The respondents also agreed to the

fact that they mostly respond to marketing messages communicated through social media than

more traditional formats such as television and radio. Also, the mean and mode values confirm

that digital marketing efforts of IKEA have changed their views of particular product. The value

of standard deviation shows how much the data varies from the mean values. From the above

table, it can be seen that the values for standard deviation is mostly less than 1 which makes it

clear that there is not too much deviation of data from the mean values which is a good sign.

Respondent’s Satisfaction of the IKEA digital marketing efforts

It provides It offers ease of It saves time Low cost is It provides
wide range of shopping incurred interactive
information medium
N Valid 200 200 200 200 200
Missing 0 0 0 0 0

Mean 3.5200 3.5800 3.6100 3.6600 3.3700

Mode 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00
Std. Deviation .98715 .94236 1.00146 .88221 .99400
Variance .974 .888 1.003 .778 .988
Minimum 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Maximum 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00
Table 9 - Satisfaction for the IKEA digital marketing efforts

During surveys, respondents were also asked about their level of satisfaction that they

have towards the digital marketing efforts of IKEA by means of different benefits that it offers to

them. The results in second column show findings pertaining to whether the digital marketing

efforts of company provide wide range of information to these consumers. The mean value is

3.5200 whereas the mode is 4 which clearly show that digital marketing efforts of IKEA provide
 39

wide range of information to its customers. In addition to this, the respondents were also satisfied

with the digital marketing efforts of IKEA as it tends to offer them with ease of shopping while

saving their time to shop, as depicted by mean and mode values of these statements. Also, the

mean value 3.66 implies that consumers were satisfied with the digital marketing efforts of this

company as low cost is incurred as compared to when they go for offline shopping. The results

also confirmed that IKEA provides an interactive medium to its customers through its digital

marketing efforts as the mean value is 3.37 while mode is 4 which show respondents level of

agreement to these statements. The value of standard deviation shows how much the data varies

from the mean values. From the above table, it can be seen that the values for standard deviation

is mostly less than 1 which makes it clear that there is not too much deviation of data from the

mean values which is a good sign.

Statistics
Digital marketing I used to click on IKEA’s online ads The online ads of
efforts of IKEA IKEA’s online ad provides IKEA are relevant
are more appealing whenever I see it comprehensive to what I mostly
to make purchase on any social information about look for purchase
decision over media platform their products
internet

N Valid 200 200 200 200

Missing 0 0 0 0
Mean 3.3600 3.6700 3.5200 3.5200
Mode 3.00 4.00 4.00 4.00
Std. Deviation .98756 .79008 1.00731 .98715
Variance .975 .624 1.015 .974
Minimum 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00
Maximum 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00
Table 10 - Attitude towards IKEA’s online advertising

From the statements in the above table, the results show the attitude of consumers

towards the online advertising of IKEA. The mean value 3.36 and mode value 3 shows that
 40

majority of the customers perceive that the digital marketing efforts of IKEA are more appealing

for making purchase decision over the internet. In addition to this, the mean value 3.67 also

shows that most of the customers of IKEA who participated in the study used to click on IKEA’s

online ad whenever they see it on any social media platform. On the other hand, the results in

above table also confirms that IKEA’s online ads provides comprehensive information about

their products while these ads are also relevant to what these customers mostly look for making

purchase decision. From the above table, it can be seen that the values for standard deviation is

mostly less than 1 which makes it clear that there is not too much deviation of data from the

mean values which is a good sign.

4.1.2 Regression Analysis

The regression test is carried out on SPSS to find out the impact of IKEA’s digital

marketing on choices of consumers. Below is the study hypothesis which is tested using linear

regression.

Ho: Digital marketing efforts do not significantly impacts consumer choices of IKEA

H1: Digital marketing efforts significantly impacts consumer choices of IKEA

Model Summary
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the
Estimate

1 .808a .653 .651 .53090

a. Predictors: (Constant), Digital marketing efforts
Table 11 - Model Summary

In regression analysis, the table summarized above shows the summary of the difference

between the dependent variable explained by the regression model. In the current study, the

dependent variable is consumer choices while the independent variable is digital marketing

efforts of the company. The above table known as model summary depicts the values of R, R
 41

Square, Adjusted R Square, and Standard error. The value of ‘R’ shows how much the

relationship between the independent and the dependent variables exist and ranges from -1 to 1.

The positive symbol shows a strong positive relationship, whereas a negative symbol shows the

inverse relationship between the two variables. Therefore, the strength and direction of the

relationship between the variables is shown by this symbol. Alternatively, the value of ‘R-

Square’ shows the relationship between the two variables.

In the above table, the R-Square value is 0. 653 which mean that independent variable in

the hypotheses that is consumer choices tends to explain 65.3% of the dependent variable of the

study. As value of R shows the relationship between two variables, the value 0.808 depicts that

both independent and dependent variable has high degree of relationship between them.

ANOVAa
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

1 Regression 104.913 1 104.913 372.229 .000b

Residual 55.807 198 .282
Total 160.720 199
a. Dependent Variable: consumer choices

b. Predictors: (Constant), Digital marketing efforts

Table 12 - Anova

In regression analysis, the ANOVA table shows the linear relationship between two

variables. To interpret ANOVA table, two values are important, F Statistic and Significant value.

In situation when the value of F in the above table is statistically significant at 0.05 levels of less

than this level, it means that there is a linear relationship between both variables of the study. At

0.05 levels that is statistically significant, it implies that there are 95% chances that the

relationship between the independent and dependent variables is not due to chance. Hence, the

0.05 level of significance became accepted level of significance used by practitioners.

 42

The above table clearly shows that two variables are statistically significant as value of F

statistic is 372.229and significant value is less than 0.05. It implies that the relationship between

the dependent and independent variables is not due to chance.

Coefficientsa
Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized t Sig.
Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) -.061 .192 -.317 .751
Digital .205 .011 .808 19.293 .000
marketing
efforts
a. Dependent Variable: consumer choices
Table 13 - Coefficients

The coefficients table in regression analysis studies the values of the independent variable

of the hypothesis. The values in column B clarifies the extent to which the value of independent

variables contributes to that of dependent variable. From the above table, it is clear that the sign

value of the independent variable age is 19.293. This value is greater than the predictor constant.

However, the‘t’ value is less than significant value. This shows that variable is not significant. In

addition to this, 0.205 is the value of unstandardised coefficient. It suggests that dependent

variable consumer choices will change by 0.205 for every unit change in independent variable

that is digital marketing efforts of IKEA. Therefore, null hypothesis is rejected from the above

result which clearly shows that ‘Digital marketing efforts significant impacts consumer choices

of IKEA’.
 43

4.2 Results from Interviews

As discussed in previous chapter, interviews were conducted from the digital marketing

managers working at IKEA so as to find out the impact of their digital marketing strategy on

business. It is important to note that the impact of digital marketing of IKEA on consumer

choices has been evaluated by means of surveys. Therefore, the major purpose to conduct

interviews is related to determining the internal insights of the company’s digital marketing

strategies and how its managers see their overall strategy for business success.

4.2.1 Importance of Digital Marketing to IKEA

Respondents were first asked about the importance of digital marketing for IKEA.

Through interviews, it was depicted that digital marketing holds significant importance in

bringing greater portion of revenues to IKEA. This is because the use of social media is now

becoming more and more influential for the reputation to brand and the manner in which the

organization applies customer relationship management practices online. One of the interview

respondents stated that, “The use of digital platform provided greater benefits to the business as

we do not only use social media for promoting the products of company, but also using the

information for gaining feedback while improving any flaws through customer complaints

online”. On the other hand, the organization also realized that inspiring creativity through digital

media is more important for them specifically in situation when resources are scare, even though

low prices forms the central part of company’s value proposition. The interviews found that the

springboard of the company’s branding as well as digital strategy is first-hand discovery where

the advancements in technology has allowed customers to shop in even more than single way;

from desktop to mobile devices, from telephone to brick and mortar stores. “IKEA’s imperative
 44

to activate its content across different platforms and social outlets, and developing a unified

omni-channel customer shopping experience, has now become more important”, stated an

interview respondent. The importance of digital marketing for IKEA could be stated from the

notion that the final key to digital marketing success of IKEA lies in how the company has been

adopting the link between product and technology. For instance, IKEA offers furniture that

charges the phone wirelessly. With more than two billion people using smartphones today, the

company ensures that its customers would no longer need to worry with the charger thing as the

furniture buyers of company could buy a product that has pre-installed wireless charging. This

shows the importance of digital arena to IKEA’s business as how the company took digital

platform seriously. It also shows that the company has not only creativity and skills with which it

can succeed online, but it also has careful mindset which keeps its brand at the lead of digital

inventiveness as well as marketing innovation.

4.2.2 Kinds of Digital Marketing Platforms used by IKEA

On the other hand, the interview respondents were also asked about the kinds of digital

marketing platforms that IKEA currently engages. It was found that, apart from mobile and other

platforms, the major digital marketing platform that IKEA uses is social media as interviews

mostly entailed about the use of social media sites as important digital tools. With regards to the

presence of IKEA on social medial, the company is largest home furnishing retailer in the world

and is considered as one of the early companies who adopted digital platform for marketing

purpose. It has also use social media at maximum while placing increased focus on its digital

catalogue that has formed an important part of its overall marketing strategies. On social media,

the company has its marketing activities on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google.
 45

On Facebook, the company has distinct pages for each of the markets where it operates,

as the UK page only attracts nearly 200,000 fans. In addition to this, there exists a good

participation, with posts that usually reach hundreds of ‘likes’ and ten of comments. The teams

sometimes respond to customer queries and complaints, although they are generally quiet than

pushing daily updates. On Twitter, the company has a separate Twitter fees for every of its local

markets where it functions. “The US feed alone has more than one million followers as we do

respond by ‘@mentions’ where customers post questions regarding the products which they

want to know”, stated an interview respondent. On the other hand, looking at the other side, the

Twitter page of IKEA Canada has more than 6 million followers. The increased number of

followers is because of the reason that the company tends to make these pages more engaging by

means of attracting its followers so that they can indulge in its various campaigns, such as

celebrating the ‘Bring your Own Friends Day’.

In addition to this, Pinterest offers an obvious choice for IKEA as it deals in home

furnishing. Also, the company claimed to be the official ‘visual discovery tool’ on Pinterest. This

is because the company has made the best use of Pinterest by visually presenting its products and

merchandise to the local markets in USA, UK, Canada, as well as in other countries.

Furthermore, Pinterest offers different brands with opportunities to create more rounded images

by predicting their personality and value, so using the platform as an addition to the current

ecommerce site seems to be a missed opportunity. Apart from Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest,

the company has only recently joined Google+ because of which it has lowest following among

all its pages on social media. IKEA has not made extensive use of this platform uphill now.

However, the company is undergoing efforts to increase its following on Google+ too.
 46

4.2.3 Effectiveness of using Digital Marketing for IKEA

Interview respondents were also inquired about the effectiveness of using digital

marketing activities to IKEA. It was found that high-quality content promoted by email and

social media offers a powerful marketing opportunity for the company. “It is not surprising that

we as market consultants make good use of it”, stated an interview respondent. Another

respondent stated that, “Industry surveys constantly highlights email as the most effective form of

online marketing and in our SEO results came close to the fourth part”. While many companies

continue to solve the challenge posed by digital, IKEA has been very successful in riding the

digital wave. As the world’s largest furniture company, the company is capable of understanding

its customers and using technology to attract their attention. In addition to this, the interviews

depicted that, known for a clever promotional feature with good collaborative factors, IKEA’s

campaign ‘Where Life Happens’ campaign uses Google’s search engine to make everyday life

better with its products. By experimenting with searches that address specific problems, IKEA

changed its products to solve common problems in life. For example, instead of simply

advertising the benefits of a particular bed, it put it on ‘My Partner Snores’. A wide range of

other products were renamed to match their typical customer problems. This random trend

continues through the IKEA Home Tour Squad; initiative that ensures IKEA staff visits home

families and individuals to help them design those spaces which are hard-to-furnish and new

ways to use their products. “This commitment to our customers has led to other digital projects

that embrace the relationship between technology and product”, stated an interview respondent.
 47

4.2.4 IKEA’s Best Digital Marketing Campaign

During interviews, respondents were inquired about the best digital marketing campaign

of IKEA that proved to be successful in bringing more revenues to the business. It was found that

the IKEA Catalogue was the best campaign as it not only describes IKEA products, but also

offers ideas and inspiration at home. The company has gone a step further by showing how their

products match and this in turn created demand for IKEA products. Most other brochures are

factually just a long list of products became very boring. As stated by an interview respondent,

“A large part of IKEA philosophy is home-based solutions. They know that many people live in

small homes, and the IKEA store always contains storage and living solutions for a narrow

range (from the description of actual living rooms). In addition, they have other inspirations like

luxury equipment, a mixture of colors (i.e. material, curtains, etc.)”. IKEA does not only sell

furniture, but it create more market value and importance by offering inspiration designs, which

in turn leads to more people who want to buy their things. Because of this, many people in fact

look at the next edition of the online catalogue. An interview respondent stated that:

“Yes, IKEA activates its content on a variety of social ways, but the most significant example of

IKEA’s mix of channels is through their catalog of 2015. What began as a print book (which

replicated 217 million copies in 2014) has now been added to IKEA’s mobile app and download

version. With the program, the process of visualizing furniture in your home is realized: it allows

you to wipe through a variety of furnishings. Almost choose and sizing on the sofa that you wants

to see in your living room. Take a photo, bookmark the product for reference, share it with

friends, or just explore different product catalogs. This new interactive media allows users to

have a different way of shopping for their favorite IKEA products”.

 48

In addition to this, customers can download the online catalogue by downloading content

with increased reality. While clicking the Download Brochure, certain videos and additional

content for customers will showcase how to customize these particular products at home.

Including all these features has made this campaign more successful.

4.2.5 Challenges of Digital Marketing Efforts at IKEA

In the last, interviewees were inquired about the various challenges faced by the company

pertaining to its digital marketing efforts. According to an interview respondent, “There is no

such challenge, but I think that continually adopting the ongoing digital transformation could

pose major challenge”. For digital marketers, one of the major issues is related to the ever-

changing digital world as it places immense impact on business activities. On the other hand, the

challenge of cyber security was also highlighted in the interviews as IKEA needs to protect its

cyber security for sure to maintain its digital presence on wide scale. “Cybercrime could pose

greater risk to business, and it could do serious damage to the reputation of company as being

the subject of high-profile data breach”, stated an interview respondent. On the other hand, the

current era is the age of customer-centricity where company needs to be customer centric when

operating its digital presence. Therefore, achieving a more holistic view of a customer is a major

driver for digital marketers who have now realized that the company requires simplifying their

brand experience with customers. The interviews depicted that organization being capable to

provide joined-up and good experience across all touchpoints of customer is an important

competitive advantage through which it can achieve important milestones in future. Another

challenge that was found is related to its increased presence on Google+. The company needs
 49

ensuring that, just as it undergo its digital marketing efforts on other platforms; it must require a

renewed focus to increase its followership on Google+.

 50

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

As the literature review gives a brief overview of the essence of digital marketing, it has

evidently become the forefront of marketing for companies around the globe. Irrespective of

business nature and product, companies are advertising and marketing their products online to

the potential customers without the constraints of physical borders and distance. Viral marketing

strategy and awareness turns to be the two main aspects in building up brand image and robust

marketing. On the other hand, the results and analysis provides some eye-opening facts and

figures regarding the impact of digital marketing on IKEA. This survey was conducted and filled

by 68 percent male and 32 percent female participants. Moreover, the majority of these people

were in the age group of 36-45 years old. The educational level of majority participants was

undergraduate as the educational level is increasing around the globe. This survey clearly

exhibits the use of internet and smartphones by the users for the purchase of products. It is

concluded that 39.5 percent of the users use online means for purchasing on daily basis. This is a

very motivating rate for the companies who are marketing online ensuring them that the virtual

presence will provide fruitful results. Moreover, the least people who account to be 8.5 percent

of the total sample size uses the online means at least a month.

5.1 Conclusion

IKEA have an online presence for more than a decade. It attracts more than 5 million

customers every month through its online and digital marketing. That is the reason IKEA has

gained the most out of the digital market i.e. 39 percent of the customers purchases IKEA

product extremely often. Only 6 percent of the target market still prevails from purchasing

products online, rest of the people purchase IKEA products at least once a year. Due to this
 51

successful marketing and advertising strategy in the virtual world, IKEA is supported, and

promoted by the customers to introduce different online marketing efforts to entail more

customers and gain more prominence in the online market. Around 55 percent of the participants

agreed that IKEA should introduce different online activities for its marketing efforts online.

The survey have moreover pointed out an anomaly where people still focus on seeing

the product physically before making the actual purchase. Only 9 percent of the total participants

agreed that online marketing strategies are more appealing than the offline ones (outlets and

stores around the corner). This clearly indicates the ambiguity and reluctance of a large ratio of

customers for making a purchase online. Although 57 percent of the participants agreed to this

thought of online marketing campaign but the ratio of ‘strongly agreeing’ participants is

evidently less. Moreover, the customer’s attitude towards IKEA online advertising campaign is

quite positive. People believe in what IKEA provides and portrays online. The brand image of

IKEA products is very strong and helps in concluding the essence of digital marketing and the

positive role of digital marketing in propagating IKEA products.

Digital marketing have become the basic norms of companies around the globe. People

select products online and get them delivered at their doorstep at the convenience of their

smartphone. This not only enable them to shop with ease, it also provides the companies with

opportunities to attract customers in emerging global markets where the company have little or

no physical presence. It can be concluded that digital marketing efforts significantly impact

consumer choices of IKEA.

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5.2 Recommendations

For IKEA, there are several recommendations to be made. IKEA is the best in the market

when it comes to digital marketing and innovative products. As a matter of fact, this name and

image have been gained through years of restless work. Coming to the top is a very difficult task

but it takes only days to go back to the bottom. IKEA should keep the pace consistent and focus

more on online market and its innovation techniques. Moreover, IKEA should now expand its

focus on emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil. These markets have a lot of untapped

potential which could be fruitful for the growth of IKEA. The consistent stretching of goals,

targets, aims, and objective will guarantee rapid growth and consistent evolution. IKEA could

gain these markets starting with the digital presence (the tool IKEA is expert at) and developing

further physical presence through opining of outlets.

Moreover, the technological world is forever evolving, and changing. A trend which is

very much adopted currently may become obsolete the next day. In such a circumstances, IKEA

should have a close look on the marketing, digital marketing, social media trends, and new tools

and platforms being introduced every day. This consistent research and development would

enable IKEA to keeps its prominent place in the digital market. If IKEA at some point fail to

keep a consistent track on the updates in the technological world, it might lose its edge in the

digital market; hence the research and development should be strong enough to support the

digital marketing and following new trends and setting new trends in the virtual market.
 53

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APPENDIX

A - Informed Consent Form

Title of Project: Impact of Digital Marketing at IKEA

Name of Researcher: ______________________________________

I confirm that I have read and understand the information regarding the study. I have had the opportunity
to consider the information, ask questions and have had these answered satisfactorily. I understand that
my participation is voluntary and that I am free to withdraw at any time, without giving any reason,
without any legal rights being affected. I agree to take part in the above research study.

PARTICIPATION: You will be asked to provide the required answer for the questions regarding the
research aims and objectives. I expect your participation to take about a few hours of your time.

RISKS and BENEFITS: The potential risks associated with this study are the risks of biasness on
part of the researcher and on part of the participants. I will give the best possible effort to remove biasness
and the related risks.

CONFIDENTIALITY: Your individual privacy will be maintained in all publications or

presentations resulting from this study. In order to preserve the confidentiality of the responses, I will not
disclose the personal information of the participants in the researcher while submitting and publishing the
research.

A signed copy of this consent form will be given to you.

I understand the above information and have had all of my questions about participation on this research
project answered. I voluntarily consent to participate in this research.

Signature of Participant: ________________________________ Date ____________________

Printed Name of Participant: ________________________________

Signature of Researcher: ________________________________ Date ____________________

 59

B- Survey Questionnaire

1. Your Gender
 Male
 Female

2. Your Age
 18-25 years
 26-35 years
 36-45 years
 46-50 years
 Above 50 years

3. Your educational qualification

 Undergraduate
 Graduate
 Post-graduate
 Diploma
 Other

4. How often do you use internet / mobile devices to search for purchasing products?
 Daily
 More than two times a week
 Weekly
 More than three times a month
 Monthly
 Other

5. How often do you buy IKEA products online?

 Not at all often
 Slightly often
 Moderately often
 Quite often
 Extremely often

6. IKEA must use different online activities for its marketing efforts
 Yes
 No
 Sometimes
 60

7. The digital marketing communications are more attractive as compared to offline

marketing campaigns of IKEA.
 Strongly disagree
 Disagree
 Neutral
 Agree
 Strongly agree

8. Please state the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements.

Where,
(1= Strongly Disagree, 2= Disagree, 3= Neutral, 4= Agree and 5= Strongly Agree)

1 2 3 4 5
I don’t prefer the print ads or Television commercials much to get the brand
awareness
The use of digital tools allowed the use of online information
The availability of IKEA’s online marketing campaigns has made me more
informed about products when making purchasing decisions
I mostly respond to marketing messages communicated through social media
than more traditional formats such as television and radio
Digital marketing efforts of IKEA has changed my views of particular
product

9. Please state the extent of your satisfaction of the IKEA digital marketing efforts with the
following statements.

Where,
(1= Strongly Dissatisfied, 2= Dissatisfied, 3= Neutral, 4= Satisfied and 5= Strongly satisfied)

1 2 3 4 5
It provides wide range of information
It offers ease of shopping
It saves time
Low cost is incurred
It provides interactive medium
 61

10. From the statement below, please select the best answer that suits your opinion for
attitude towards IKEA’s Online Advertising?

Where,
(1= Strongly Disagree, 2= Disagree, 3= Neutral, 4= Agree and 5= Strongly Agree)

1 2 3 4 5
Digital marketing efforts of IKEA are more appealing to make purchase
decision over internet
I used to click on IKEA’s online ad whenever I see it on any social media
platform
IKEA’s online ads provides comprehensive information about their products
The online ads of IKEA are relevant to what I mostly look for purchase
11. Briefly provide your opinion about IKEA’s digital marketing strategies
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
 62

C- Interview Questionnaire

1. Discuss the importance of digital marketing for your business.

2. What kinds of digital marketing do you engage in for your own business?

3. Overall how effective do you consider these marketing activities for your business?

4. Which digital marketing campaign was proved to be best for IKEA in bringing more

revenues for the company? Discuss.

5. What are the various challenges associated with your digital marketing efforts?