Ikea was established by Swedish entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad with the intent of offering well-designed furniture at prices affordable by as many people. Unfortunately, one area notable by their absence in Ikea’s product lineup are Swedish death metal and black metal bands.
Gatesman + Dave have created an online quiz that challenges users to identify whether certain words refer to IKEA products or Swedish death metal bands. Give it a go now!
IKEA OR DEATH
IKEA is an inviting store where customers can buy affordable furniture in its warehouses, while black metal music can sound like someone wailing in an enclosed burning church and has an intense fan base. However, they often sound similar and this quiz from Pittsburgh-based ad agency Gatesman+Dave will test your ability to distinguish them.
“We were stunned at how well people responded,” stated Sam Panico of Gatesman+Dave to PSFK. The website features words which you must decipher whether they belong to Ikea products or death metal bands (it can be challenging!).
The Local takes a deeper dive into this quiz, and discovers that many Ikea products eerily resemble bands such as Burzum, Absu and Watain from death metal bands like Burzum, Absu and Watain unless one speaks Swedish fluently or is well acquainted with Swedish death metal bands such as those mentioned earlier. Furthermore, being an Scanlanavian company like IKEA makes them uniquely connected with black metal music, which has deep rootedness across Scandinavia.
But is Ikea suffering as a result of this game? “This publicity for Ikea comes from outside sources rather than being company sponsored,” according to branding expert Nils von Hejner of Sweden-based Pronto. The game may reach new audiences – particularly younger target groups and rockers – that may help give it more positive associations; yet its effect on sales remains undetermined; for now however it provides an engaging distraction! Good luck and enjoy!
QUIZ
Finding an appealing band name can be one of the most challenging parts of creating a metal band, and IKEA can provide assistance. Picking something catchy and memorable will ensure your group stands out amongst its competition, but finding one with sounds similar to Swedish furniture may prove more difficult. Luckily, though, they have an online tool called Swedish Furniture Name Generator to assist.
IKEA is a popular Swedish megalomart known for their budget furniture that’s easy to put together but hard to pronounce, often featuring exotic sounds like umlauts and other foreign sounds in their names – which may make pronunciation challenging for non-Scandinavians. Death metal bands also often employ strange-sounding names that could easily be mistaken as IKEA items, so now metal fans and furniture shoppers alike have an opportunity to test their ability to differentiate between the two with an online quiz designed specifically to test this ability!
Sam Panico and Jeff Barton from Gatesman + Dave have come up with IKEA or Death, a fun interactive quiz designed to test your knowledge about Scandinavian words used as either Ikea items or death metal band names. You have 20 slides each containing one such foreign-sounding Scandanavian word to guess which is correct – however you may second-, third- or even fourth-guess yourself multiple times throughout. Nevertheless, the quiz should give you plenty of chuckles while reminding you there are only so many guttural consonant sounds used across languages!
STORY
Have you been to Ikea? You know their furniture is affordable and modern, yet assembly takes patience. Ikea is known for their Scandinavian roots, DIY democratization, and flat-pack concept; their furniture is designed to fit seamlessly into everyday lifestyles, so all it needs to be customized to your personal preferences is patience and time.
IKEA and black metal may seem disparate at first glance, yet both share common elements like product names and passionate fan bases. Pittsburgh advertising agency Gatesman + Dave has developed a website where visitors are challenged to match words to either IKEA products or death metal bands – for some added fun try taking the quiz below (Image Credits: Sam Panico and Jeff Barton from Gatesman+Dave)