By Patrick C Budge C.D

Strategic PR Plan (Project)

Background

DECEMBER 16

IKEA announced back on December 16 2010 that it will open a store in Winnipeg. The Swedish furniture chain had purchased a piece of the former CN Intermodal Terminal site at Kenaston Boulevard and Sterling Lyon Parkway.

The IKEA story begins in 1926 when founder Ingvar Kamprad is born in Småland in southern Sweden. Ingvar wanted to develop a business and by the 1980s IKEA had expanded dramatically into the USA, Italy, France and the UK. In 1976 Ikea arrived in Canada IKEA is owned and operated by a complicated array of not-for-profit and for-profit corporations. The corporate structure is divided into two main parts: operations and franchising.

In 1994, IKEA ran a commercial in the United States widely thought to be the first commercial featuring a homosexual couple. Another IKEA commercials feature the gay community, once featuring a transgender woman.

Awards IKEA was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 and 2005 by Working Mothers magazine. It ranked 96 in Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2006 and in October 2008, IKEA Canada LP was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's news magazine.

Situation Analysis

Strengths

IKEA is amongst the biggest retailers of furniture in the world. Ikea sells more than 10,000 furnishing products from well over 300 stores in around 40 countries. IKEA is a Scandinavian company famous for furniture from living rooms to children's bedrooms.

The retailer's 350,000-square-foot store will be the anchor tenant in a massive big-box development that will turn about 80 hectares of industrial land into the largest development the

By Patrick C Budge C.D

city has seen in 25 years. This was former industrial land and it will take 12 years to fully develop the site.

Weaknesses

How will people perceive another big box store and do we need one? Will Ikea kill the competition? Police may need to direct traffic for up to 1 month post grand opening. Tax payers may be upset by spending tax dollars to improve the infrastructure. It is expected to take about 12 years to complete the entire development of the site.

Luis Escobar, the city's transportation manager, said traffic crews plan to update the timing of about 12 signals on Kenaston between Academy Road and Scurfield Boulevard as soon as they can. In 2007, the city synchronized the traffic signals as part of a pilot project. Since then, there's been a lot of construction in the area and some of the signal-timing equipment has been disconnected or damaged, Escobar said. The initial traffic impact study analyzed future traffic volumes and the congestion around intersections near the Seasons of Tuxedo development, where IKEA will be located, and assumed Kenaston would be widened to six lanes by 2018. IKEA is slated to open toward the end of the year, and the area is expected to see an additional 695,000 square feet of retail and office space by 2018.

Opportunities

It will mean more job’s, for local people here in Winnipeg. Ikea is using reclaimed industrial land. It will allow Manitobans to buy directly from the store as opposed to ordering online. Kenaston would be widened to six lanes by 2018, more jobs. IKEA is slated to open toward the end of the year, and the area is expected to see an additional 695,000 square feet of retail and office space by 2018. More revenue and jobs, for Winnipeg

Threats

Local companies, in Winnipeg, that sells furniture. Winnipeg plans to look at possible bus routes direct to IKEA .Tweaks, to the way lights are synchronized, to improve traffic flow to a major retail development on Kenaston Boulevard. Will this just create more congestion in this area?

Objectives:

The objectives are to expand support, for our move into the Winnipeg/Manitoba market. Primarily this can be achieved in several ways:

By Patrick C Budge C.D

1) Extol the virtues of long term stable employment.2) IKEA will pay a large part of the infrastructure improvement at the location.3) Highlight that this was already zoned industrial, so as to assure people that no new farm

land is being used for this project. 4) Give projections of the economic spin off from this development. 12 years of

construction is a boost to the local economy, in conjunction with the jobs generated by the actual stores involved.

Enlisting the support of many groups will be possible through the promotion of these themes. This will eliminate misgivings about the project. In addition it should bring those groups opposed to development on board by showing that IKEA has chosen land that has already been used industrially.

Marketing Strategy

Primary Target Market:

To retain existing IKEA customers, by wowing them with this large store. Customers can be encouraged to buy more products. This can be achieved by reminding the clients that they are no longer burdened with the shipping costs, because they have their own store.

Promotional campaign

Something to the effect that “Winnipeg IKEA listened to your wants”! “We have built you the largest store in Canada to serve you better”!

Tactics

Implementation, this can be carried out in 3 primary ways.

A) Local Celebrities can be engaged to promote our coming. This campaign should start in June to build, for the Grand opening.

By Patrick C Budge C.D

B) Shoppers could be secretly hired, to get in line 2 days before the doors open, in order to build the anticipation. The opening will coincide with the start of school, so incentives could be offered to post-secondary students to get them interested in the brand.

C) All of these efforts must be promoted through all media channels. It would also be a good idea to have some dedicated bloggers and tweeters starting in May/June. This would be an excellent opportunity to employ University and College students from the Public Relations and Marketing courses.

IKEA would be well advised to employ, an advanced shopping stunt, at another location. This was done successfully by Target in the GTA in advance of their official Canadian debut.

Measurement

*Google analytics will be able to measure feedback on our blog sites.

*Radio and TV contests can further measure feedback of the response to IKEA launch.

*Response to the advanced shopping stunt orchestrated before the official launch.