Agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky,

Agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami



Creative director Paul Keister and his team were hanging out in his house, brainstorming ideas for the strategy that won them the Ikea account in 2002: You don’t have to live with furniture you don’t like. One suggestion was to depict heavy, old furniture as tombstones in a cemetery. But that “seemed too negative, and there wasn’t an easy way into Ikea,” recalls Keister.

A better route, they decided, was to show new Ikea furniture replacing an iconic old-fashioned item, a grandfather clock.