Ikea Japan: Ikea Harajuku with Imma experience

Category: Experiential; Entered by: Wieden + Kennedy Tokyo

In Japan, the home has always been a functional place. This is particularly true for young people in Tokyo, as most live in tiny one-bedroom or studio apartments. To inspire this audience to think differently about their home environment, Ikea placed the Japanese virtual model, Imma, into a physical home for the first time. For 72 hours, Imma’s home was set over two floors in Ikea’s new Harajuku shop, and passersby could watch her do yoga and dance, as well as perform mundane tasks. 

The set featured LED screens that allowed Ikea to bring Imma into the space, with the colour of the LED panels adapting to the real world in real time by using light meters to track the daylight and weather. Imma’s home was shoppable too, with her exclusive product range available to buy online or in store. 

Those who couldn’t visit the real window in Harajuku could tune into Imma’s life via a 72-hour livestream on Ikea Japan’s YouTube channel. Or, of course, they could follow Imma’s updates from her time inside the store on her social channels.

Imma’s first home made the news in media outlets worldwide, and the activation weekend gave Ikea Harajuku its highest number of visitors to date.

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy Tokyo
ECD: Scott Dungate
Creative Lead: Max Pilwat
Art Director/Designer: Shohei Kawada
Copywriters: Max Cameron, Haruto Murata
Creative Tech Director: Kyoko Yonezawa
Head of Production: Kerli Teo
Agency Producers: Kosuke Sasaki, Yoko Onodera, Reiko Kawaguchi, Siyun Kim, Hanako Adams
Account Team: William Smith, Becky Levy, Naoko Okada, Chelsea Hayashi, Asako Takahashi
Strategic Planner: Hasse Lemola
Comms Planners: Justin Lam, Eri Hirose
Studio Manager: Kiki Bowman, Aiwei Ichikawa
Translator: Toshiko Iida
Agency Editors: Vinod Vijayasankaran, Jacob Kim
Event Photographer: Alexis Wuillaume
Virtual Human Production Company: Aww Inc
Executive Producer: Producer M
Producer: Yuna Hori
CGI: AnimationCafe
Production Company: Maxilla
Producer: Daichi Tanaka
Director: Tetsuro Abo
Production Manager: Ami Murata
Cameraman: Tomonobu Kasai
Gaffer: Takamasa Furukawa
Production Designer: Emi Kaneko
Digital Interaction Production Company: Undefined Inc
Tech Director/Programmer: Ken Murayama
Still/Print Production Producers: Naohito Nishitani, Shion Kimura
Photographer: Kisshomaru Shimamura
Production Company: Daiichi Seihan
Print Coordinator: Tsutomu Kawakami, Hitoshi Sugita, Masayuki Uno
LED Screen Production Company: SystemRASA
Tech Director: Kazunari Takashima
Sound Design Production Company: MassiveMusic Tokyo