The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2017–2018
IKEA's 'Pee Ad' doubles as a pregnancy test — a positive result prints a crib discount
IKEA's Amelia magazine ad works as a real pregnancy test — pregnant readers unlock a hidden family price on the SUNDVIK crib; 1,700 articles, 43M impressions.
IKEA (Ingka Group)
What it had to solve
IKEA wanted to promote its SUNDVIK crib and the IKEA Family membership club to expecting parents in Sweden. The brief was a retail 'appendix' to the brand concept 'Where Life Happens,' and the agency asked what a print ad could do beyond showing a price.
How it works
In early 2018 IKEA Sweden published an ordinary-looking magazine ad for its SUNDVIK crib with the tagline 'Peeing on this ad may change your life.' It ran in the Swedish women's magazine Amelia as part of the 'Where Life Happens' brand concept.
The page was actually a functional pregnancy test developed with medical tech lab Mercene Labs: the paper contained antibodies that bind to the pregnancy hormone hCG, and a positive result made a better IKEA Family price appear beneath the pre-printed price of the crib.
Åkestam Holst first pitched the idea about a year earlier and spent three to four months turning the chemistry into printable media. The agency said the technical advances could eventually extend to diagnostics for conditions such as certain heart diseases.
The stunt became global news: roughly 1,700 articles and 43 million impressions, an estimated US$12 million in media value, and the advertised crib sold out — proof that making the ad itself the experience can beat buying more exposure.
Why it lands
- It gave the medium a function: only the right reader — a pregnant woman — can unlock the offer, so relevance is built into the page.
- Turning a discount into a surprise discovery made the ad worth trying, sharing and covering.
- Partnering with a medical lab made a gimmick technically real, and the technology itself carried diagnostic potential.
- It fit the 'Where Life Happens' brand truth — IKEA present at the moment a family starts.
What it did
The ad generated about 1,700 articles and 43 million impressions worldwide, an estimated $12 million in advertising value, and sold out the advertised crib — while the printable test technology carried potential for medical diagnostics.
What you can take
A media channel is not just a container — it can be the product: build the response mechanism into the medium itself, and the ad becomes the news.
Since then
The Pee Ad became one of the most-discussed print ideas of 2018 and remains Åkestam Holst's best-known IKEA work. For IKEA it strengthened the Family club story behind a real purchase moment, and for the agency it proved that a media innovation can carry a retail message — while Mercene Labs suggested the printable test technology could extend beyond ads toward diagnostics.
Sources
- IKEA Wants You to Pee on Its Latest Print Ad
- The Story Behind the IKEA Ad that Asked Magazine Readers to Pee on It
- You may now take a pregnancy test with an IKEA ad
- ¿Cómo vender una cuna? La campaña de IKEA que identifica embarazadas
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