IKEA makes the world’s first website inside of Instagram: how?

Instagram gets creative, paves the way for others

Instagram can be a fun way to stay in contact with people and push branding in a very visual way, but it isn’t much more than a steady stream of images and video, or is it? In IKEA’s latest innovation, they have taken the idea of an Instagram feed, turned it upside down, and used it to showcase their very own catalog as a very stylish website, right from Instagram.

IKEA and Russian ad agency, Instinct, have hacked Instagram to create their very own catalog-esque website; complete with a series of interconnected accounts, right from the Instagram feed.

This site was built to showcase IKEA’s PS 2014 collection, so each of the 32 items in the collection were given an account and each account was linked by Instagram’s infamous tags to allow IKEA fans to surf between each item in the collection. IKEA has also involved their fans by allowing them to upload and tag items they purchased from collection so others would see and become intrigued by the rest of the catalog.

Why is this relevant?

Sure, IKEA has always been pretty good at creating products with more than one function. Long-time IKEA fan site, IKEA Hackers, was even served a cease-and-desist order by IKEA for infringing on their trade. If you have spend any time on Pinterest at all, you have likely seen an IKEA hack; versatility is definitely associated with the brand.

Now, they are bringing this same versatility to the Instagram marketplace. They have taken an app, that many of us use daily to share personal photos and “hacked” it into an interactive marketing platform. This invites other businesses to think outside the box and use Instagram, as well as other sharing applications, for more than just their original, intended uses.

IKEA’s new campaign is not only innovative; it is engaging. Two keys points for any successful campaign. What do you think about using Instagram as a website? I think it has great potential to push branding even further, especially given the nature of Instagram’s interconnected tagging system. According to Creative Guerrila Marketing, this could be the first of many website type designs on Instagram, since IKEA has already laid the groundwork.