Ikea boss in agency move

Ikea’s top marketer in the UK, Anders Danielsson, is leaving to head global communications strategy at the furniture retailer’s own newly created in-house agency.

He will be replaced by Peter Jelkeby, former UK sales manager and currently store manager of Ikea at the Lakeside shopping centre in Thurrock.

Danielsson will join the in-house agency Ikea Communications AB at the beginning of October and report to the agency’s managing director, Peter Keerberg. The agency will handle the publication of the Ikea catalogue, brochures and any global marketing and advertising initiatives.

It will also provide advertising support for those markets where there are only a couple of stores, or for small agencies with similar marketing objectives that have banded together to fund an advertising campaign.

Danielsson adds: “We are not replacing any current agency arrangements, but are acting more as a complement to those existing agencies.”

In the UK, Ikea uses Kamarama for its advertising and MediaCom for media buying. He says there is no “ambition or initiative” to appoint a global media agency as has been suggested by some press reports.

Danielsson anticipates that in the future marketing will become increasingly localised with individual stores taking on more responsibility for developing local initiatives to attract shoppers.

This mirrors a move by UK managing director Peter Hogsted who has pledged to cut head office staff and to devolve key strategy decisions to individual store boards.

Ikea has 13 stores in the UK and has a target of 20.