Bolmen, Järvfjället, Skärhamn, Kallax och Toftan. These and others are more than weird Ikea product names. Ikea got them from real places in Sweden and they’re wonderful places to visit. So Forsman & Bodenfors has turned them into a delightfully quirky campaign for Visit Sweden, Discover the Originals.
Bolmen, located in a scenic corner of the province of Småland, not far from Agunnaryd where IKEA’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad, grew up. Here, visitors have ample opportunity to enjoy the gorgeous natural surroundings canoe, hike and bike on trails, or pick mushrooms and berries. As a part of this campaign Bolmen is launching a new slogan, ”Bolmen – more than an IKEA toilet brush”.
“We do appreciate that IKEA has named a product for our beautiful lake and that Visit Sweden is bringing global attention to this. But now we would like to show the world that Bolmen is so much more than an item with which you clean your toilet. It is an incredibly beautiful place, much loved by us locals. We would like to invite the whole world to spend time in our wonderful, unspoiled natural environment, showing the same care we do and enjoying the crystal-clear water,” commented Magnus Gunnarsson, chair of Smålands Sjörike and municipal council member in Ljungby.
“In Sweden, we are proud of IKEA and, in a way, you can say that it helped us make Swedish places world-famous through the names it borrowed for its products. Now we want, with warmth and a twinkle in our eye, to show the originals behind the product names and invite the world to discover the whole of Sweden,” stated Nils Persson, chief marketing officer, Visit Sweden.
The campaign covers 21 places to visit – Viking monuments, picturesque towns, castles and silver mines and activities from white-water rafting, to dog sledding, fly-fishing and ice swimming. Some of the other places highlighted in this campaign are Järvfjället in Lapland (also an Ikea chair) , which offers grand outdoor experiences including hiking and cross-country skiing on trails alongside Lapland’s unique fauna. The picturesque fishing village, Skärhamn, on the island of Tjörn (and an Ikea handle), where one can enjoy freshly-caught seafood and experience international art at Nordiska Akvarellmuseet. The coastal town of Kallax in Norrbotten (also a shelving unit in Ikea), where you can cruise between thousands of small islands during summer nights lit by the midnight sun, as well as experience one of Sweden’s more “aromatic” culinary traditions during the town’s annual fermented herring parties. And lake Toftan in Dalarna, where art lovers can paddle a canoe the length of the lake before visiting the house on the lakeside in nearby Sundborn, once owned by artists Karin and Carl Larsson, known and loved for their impact on Swedish interior design – although at Ikea it’s a trash can.
Fun fact: Ingvar Kamprad, who founded IKEA, also developed the system for how IKEA names its products. Different product categories are named according to different criteria. Bathroom items such as the Bolmen toilet brush are named after Swedish lakes. Chairs and couches, like Järvfjället and Ektorp, are named after Swedish towns and villages.
