Discover the story behind IKEA’s iconic 1980s ads by Lennart Ekmark, Hans Brindfors and Leon Nordin—emotion-driven, strategic and bold branding.

The IKEA journey into North America was anything but smooth. From early missteps in Canada to a chaotic debut in Philadelphia, this is the story of how a small-town Swedish brand took on one of the world’s toughest retail markets. With determination and adaptability, IKEA built its first real foothold in the United States.

How many brilliant ideas can you get thinking about hot dogs? Quite a lot as it turns out. In the mid-1990s, IKEA realised that the hot dog was a great symbol for good quality at a low price. That may be a lot to expect from a humble sausage, but it became an important piece of the puzzle in thinking freely and innovatively when it came to product development. But let’s start at the beginning, when a hot dog was just a simple hot dog.

Ingvar Kamprad loved mistakes, as long as you learnt something and didn’t make them again. “It must be allowed to make mistakes. It is always the mediocre people who are negative, who spend their time proving that they were not wrong,” he wrote in The Testament of a Furniture Dealer in 1976. The way Ingvar saw it, the fear of making mistakes was “the enemy of development” and “the root of bureaucracy”.

When Ingvar Kamprad opened the doors on his first furniture showroom in Älmhult back in 1953, he wanted to offer visitors coffee and a biscuit – a new phenomenon in the thrifty county of Småland back then. And it was a huge success. The queues were long, and when the biscuits started running out there was something of a panic.

In the late 1980s the green movement was really taking off, and more and more people were composting their waste at home in the garden. But hardly anyone had ever tried composting indoors – and IKEA wanted to change that.

After more than 30 years in the IKEA range, it’s one of the most used bags in the world. It’s big and strong, and pretty much anything will fit inside, whether you’re shopping, moving, doing the laundry or going to the beach. An iconic tote bag that has also inspired new creations by everyone from keen DIYers to luxury fashion designers.

What do you do if you are told to do the impossible? Say no? Well, in this particular case it wasn’t an option for Paulina Pajak. She is a Product Developer in the Lighting department, which develops the global IKEA product range. The person looking for the impossible was IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, who walked into the department and said: “We’re going to sell LED bulbs for less than one euro.”

Towards the end of the 1940s, IKEA started selling furniture, and it very quickly became the main business. Always thinking of challenges as opportunities brought about all kinds of innovations in purchasing, finances and distribution. The foundation for this was already in Ingvar Kamprad back in the days when he worked on a small scale with pens and pipes at home – but the power and opportunities in the gap between customer and manufacturer really materialised in the 1950s.

Long before the rest of the world started talking about corporate culture, Ingvar Kamprad wrote down his vision and ideology for IKEA. He called it The Testament of a Furniture Dealer. It describes how IKEA needs to act to remain a successful, vibrant company. So what exactly is it all about?

Browse the IKEA catalogue 1970, with products and interiors popular at the time. Explore and let yourself be surprised and inspired by life at home 1970.

Browse the IKEA catalogue 1997, with products and interiors popular at the time. Explore and let yourself be surprised and inspired by life at home 1997.

Browse the IKEA catalogue 1986, with products and interiors popular at the time. Explore and let yourself be surprised and inspired by life at home 1986.

Browse the IKEA catalogue 1982, with products and interiors popular at the time. Explore and let yourself be surprised and inspired by life at home 1982.

Browse the IKEA catalogue 1980, with products and interiors popular at the time. Explore and let yourself be surprised and inspired by life at home 1980.

Read about the GRUNDTAL bathroom series in stainless steel from 2002, designed by Mikael Warnhammar for hanging things up in hot and wet rooms.

Read about the GUIDE book shelf from 1984 with wire sides and coloured shelf edges for the urban 1980s style, edges in red, blue, yellow or green.

Discover IKEA designer Anna Efverlund and learn about her playful creations, including functional textiles, soft toys, lamps, and children's furniture.

Discover designer Inez Svensson, a powerful force in the world of textiles, contributing to the textile revolution at IKEA with patterns like RANDIG BANAN.

Discover Bengt Ruda who worked as a designer at Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) before becoming the first trained designer at IKEA in 1956, known for CAVELLI and GRILL.

Discover Japanese designer Noboru Nakamura whose simple but functional and stylish products include timeless IKEA pieces like KLIPPAN and POÄNG.

Discover Danish designer Niels Gammelgaard known for iconic Scandinavian designs including timeless classics for IKEA like TED, MOMENT, GUIDE and JÄRPEN.