IKEA Puts Its Global Media Account Into Play

IKEA has stopped testing the water and jumped in. Ingka Group, the franchisee that operates the majority of the world's blue-and-yellow big boxes, has moved a March request for information into a full global media agency review, run out of the flat-pack giant's global team in Sweden.

The account is one of the most coveted in retail, and the incumbency map is messy by design. Global media planning and buying has sat with dentsu's iProspect, while WPP shops hold significant market-level business — including Mindshare in Australia, which has held the local remit since prising it away from MediaCom and Dentsu Aegis in a 2016 pitch. Mindshare declined to comment. That silence is the loudest thing in the story.

The review lands while IKEA is already mid-reshuffle. Global creative went to McCann in 2023, and recent work such as the '50 Years. Just the Start' anniversary push — complete with the world's first flat-packed FLIP FLÖPS — suggests a brand happy to trade dignity for earned media. In Australia, marketing leadership is changing hands too, with Erin Falconer taking over from Kirsten Hasler, who is off to Unilever.

For agencies, the timing is brutal and irresistible. Retail media, commerce data and AI-assisted buying have turned media reviews into arguments about infrastructure rather than rate cards. Whoever wins IKEA does not just buy spots; they get to help wire the retailer's customer data into how it sells sofas. Expect a long process, a lot of consultant slide decks, and at least one holding company briefing journalists that it was never really at risk.