Shoppers encouraged to urinate on IKEA's latest advert
IKEA and Swedish design agency Åkestam Holst have created an advert that acts as a pregnancy test, revealing a special offer when it detects a positive result in a woman's urine.
At first glance, the design – which featured in a Swedish women's magazine – appears much like an ordinary IKEA advert promoting the brand's Sundvick baby crib.
![](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2018/01/ikea-akestam-holst-pee-advert_dezeen_2364_col_0-852x480.jpg)
But further down the page, women are instructed to apply a sample of urine on a marked area. If they are pregnant, their urine will cause the advert to change, to show a special discount offer on the crib.
While it looks as though the advert is offering a discount to pregnant women, it is actually intended to advertise IKEA's membership club IKEA Family.
![](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2018/01/ikea-akestam-holst-pee-advert_dezeen_2364_col_1-852x479.jpg)
"The whole ad is a pregnancy test that actually interacts with your potential pregnancy," said Åkestam Holst, an ad agency based in Stockholm.
"Instead of a simple line indicating a positive result, IKEA presents you with a better price on a new baby crib if you're pregnant. All in real time, right there in the ad."
![](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2018/01/ikea-akestam-holst-pee-advert_dezeen_2364_col_2-852x478.jpg)
To create the advert's interactive function, IKEA and Åkestam Holst partnered with materials research company Mercene Labs.
The starting point was a strip found inside pregnancy tests, which reacts to the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and causes a change in colour.
Across a period of four months, the team worked to scale up this standardised method so that it would work for an A4-sized printed advert.
![](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2018/01/akestam-holst-ikea-advert-_dezeen_2364_col_0-852x852.jpg)
"Mercene Labs used their experience in development of surface active materials for microfluidics and medical diagnostics," explained the studio. "Careful selection of materials, together with a controlled capillary flow have been crucial for the success of this project."
This isn't the first time IKEA has applied a tongue-in-cheek approach to its advertising campaigns.
In 2017, the company released a spot-the-difference guide after its iconic blue tote bag was copied by fashion house Balenciaga, and also created a spoof instruction manual that shows how to make your own Game of Thrones cape from one of its rugs.
The Swedish flat-pack furniture giant, founded in 1926, topped Dezeen Hot List in 2017 for its vast range of initiatives over the past year.
These include the introduction of snap-together furnishings, which do away with fiddly Allen keys, and a collection of no-waste products.