The mission was to address the UK’s labour shortage, attracting job candidates while showing that IKEA “does careers differently.” Alongside Weber Shandwick, Rapp, The Gang – and of course IKEA’s own marketing team – Mother London came up with a brilliant solution. A virtual store, in Roblox, where potential employees could show off their skills and learn new ones. They also got paid for their work. After the break, the team explain how they pulled it off.
“The Co-Worker” is a terrific idea. How and when did the idea emerge, and why was Roblox the perfect choice of platform?
The “Co-Worker” idea stemmed from one aim: to drive awareness of IKEA as an employer and focus on younger talent for the future. It was aiming to solve a real problem IKEA was facing: the brand was struggling to attract enough new employees, particularly younger workers. The labour market was tight, and there was a lack of awareness about IKEA as a place for a meaningful career. We could have gone the traditional route of running ads, but we wanted to connect with potential employees where they already were, and that meant online, specifically on gaming platforms. Roblox was the perfect choice because it allowed us to engage with that younger audience in a space they were familiar with and let them experience what working at IKEA could actually be like – not just telling them.
At what stage did you decide it was important to pay the people who enrolled for jobs at the virtual IKEA?
Initially, paying people to work in the virtual IKEA wasn’t part of the plan. However, that evolved as we realized it was a great way to generate even more interest and buzz. By offering payment, we attracted influencers and journalists, which really helped spread the word. It also allowed us to showcase IKEA's commitment to innovation and fair pay, reminding everyone that IKEA is a UK living wage employer.
How long did it take to design the environment? Do you take care of that within Mother, or do you work with an external specialist?
Designing the virtual IKEA environment was a true collaboration. IKEA’s own in-house store designers worked alongside Mother, the IKEA marketing communications team, and The Gang, a game development studio. Everyone brought something unique to the table. We aimed to make IKEA on Roblox as authentic as possible, paying attention to every detail, from the furniture scale to the meatball packaging. We wanted users to feel like they were truly stepping into a real IKEA store, just one that happened to be on Roblox.
How did you choose the real co-workers who became NPCs within the game? That must have been a weird experience for them!
To choose the real co-workers who became NPCs in the game, we simply asked for volunteers. IKEA co-workers are incredibly proud of where they work, so they were excited to participate and see themselves recreated in pixel form.
At what point did you realise that project was turning into a huge success?
We were hoping for a successful project, and the team – Mother, Weber Shandwick, Rapp, The Gang and our colleagues at IKEA – worked incredibly hard to prepare. But the global reaction to the launch of IKEA on Roblox was even better than we anticipated. The sheer number of memes and shares on social media indicated it was going to be big. When major news outlets started covering it, the story went truly global.
We always aim to create something people want to share, and IKEA on Roblox definitely did that. Most importantly, it also moved the dial on real job applications. Within a month, the number of applications doubled, with many candidates mentioning that they’d played the game and it had encouraged them to apply. And inside IKEA, there has already been interest from other markets to run the campaign, with the Netherlands planning to use and promote IKEA on Roblox as part of its employer branding campaign.
Given the press coverage, you could just as easily have won our PR Grand Prix. I imagine the PR aspect was built into the strategy from the start?
The PR aspect was definitely built into the strategy from the start. Working with Weber Shandwick, we were able to stretch our thinking and generate even more engagement. We knew this was an employer brand campaign with a recruitment objective, so the budget was smaller than a typical brand campaign. Our aim was to design an ecosystem that would maximize interaction with our target audience. The collaboration helped us achieve more than we could have individually, allowing the IKEA employer brand to punch above its weight.
What was the follow-up for the folks who worked at the virtual store?
Of course, the fame response was wonderful. But this wasn’t born of a brief that was answering a fame challenge – it was a challenge anchored in perceptions of a career at IKEA. Demonstrating The Co-Worker’s impact on that challenge was really important.
We sent a survey to the 178,000 people who’d applied for the virtual co-worker role – with a screener question to ensure they had played the game since, covering questions connected to their perceptions of our employer brand and of key IKEA career benefits. Because this survey wasn’t mandatory by any means, we anticipated perhaps 1,000 responses. We got 15,000 back. A huge data set to mine for further insights and, of course, a reflection of how engaging the idea was.
What they told us helped us understand how effective the Co-Worker programme was: 72% said the game made them think more positively about a real career at IKEA; 70% agreed IKEA was the kind of place where it’s easy to switch departments; and 85% thought IKEA would be a great place to work in real life.
We also saw a 50% increase in real job applications, showing that the campaign reached its objective, whether people played the game or simply heard about it. Anecdotally, we have also heard from hiring managers that IKEA on Roblox has been mentioned several times as part of people’s interview process!
