To understand the new spots produced by The Ace Film Company for Ikea Seattle, trip back to the 1980s, if you will. At the time, McCann-Erickson was the agency of record for Ikea nationally and Bjorn Bailey was the head of marketing for Ikea Canada. Also, in the ’80s, Bill Negus was the manager at McCann in Vancouver. It was then that Bailey and Negus combined forces with producer Parker Jefferson and Ace to produce a series of white-limbo Ikea spots, starring a little Swedish man named Ingemar Palmqvist.

‘He became quite a cult figure,’ says Jefferson from his car phone, reminiscing about the early days of Ingemar.

It was this highly successful campaign that inspired a reunion of sorts for the creative brains that advertised Ikea in the decade of grey suits and Boy George. Now, with Ace still going strong, Negus at the head of his own Vancouver agency, Negus Communications, and Bailey operating his own Ikea franchise in Seattle (every store but his is owned entirely by Ikea), Ingemar fever has been revived.

‘Bailey has the autonomy to do his own marketing program,’ Jefferson begins. ‘No other Ikea manager would have [this autonomy] because they’re all told to take whatever is given to them in terms of television production. Bailey doesn’t like the Gilligan’s Island stuff and whatever the heck else they’re running nationally in the u.s., which comes out of New York City. He’d rather use Ingemar.’

Having continued a relationship with both Bailey and Negus, Ace was a natural to pick up where it had left off two decades back, producing spots with Ingemar.

According to Jefferson, Ingemar never left: ‘A lot of people on the street still recognize him – it’s amazing! People remember Ingemar from the days he was the Canadian national spokesman. So his personality cuts through, I guess.’

The renegade Ikea spots were shot in Vancouver over four days, both in studio and on location. The shoot put nine 15-second Olympic promo ads and three 30-second holiday-season ads in the can. More specifically, the :30s were shot on 35mm film and the 15s were lensed with a digital camera and a smaller crew. The digital spots were produced with both cost-savings and an ‘old film style’ post effect in mind.

The Olympic promos, slated to air around Aug. 15, will be shown in the Seattle/Portland market. They are black-and-white and have an old Olympic stock footage look. In fact, actual stock footage was included in the ads. They depict Ingemar – the intrepid Swedish hero – participating Jerry Lewis-style (read: slapstick) in Olympic events from the 1912 Stockholm Games. Everything from a herring toss to rowing events is shown in varying degrees of hilarity. The spots are tagged with ‘This Olympic moment brought to you by Ikea, and me – Ingemar.’

The :30s, in color, will be held back for the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. Of course, Ingemar is featured prominently in all.

Ace veteran Allen Jones was the campaign’s director/dop. Negus served as creative director/writer and Keith Hines was the agency producer. Jefferson produced for Ace. The editor was Darryl Larson in-house at Ace and audio post was completed at Sound Kitchen in Vancouver.

If the new spots are successful, would Ikea consider employing Ingemar in all of its advertising? This is a thought that makes Jefferson salivate.

‘We always think, wouldn’t that be nice. But I’ve been in the business long enough to know that big agencies have their ways. It is perhaps unlikely that a big agency that handles Ikea in Canada [Roche Macaulay & Partners] would want to accept creative from what would be considered a little jerk-water outfit in Vancouver,’ Jefferson laughs.

The biggest difficulty on the shoot – which was clearly a lot of fun – was the herring toss. Just as b.c. often stands in for Seattle, in this case, a salmon stood in for the herring.

‘Herring is very prominent in Sweden, so it had to be a herring toss,’ Jefferson says. ‘But a herring is a stupid-looking, insignificant little fish. So it is actually a small salmon that gets tossed around. And we’re wondering how many people from Seattle will call up and say, ‘Hey that’s not a herring, that’s a salmon.’ ‘

According to Jefferson, there is a large Scandinavian population in Seattle, which will also contribute to Ingemar’s appeal in the market. *

-www.acefilm.com