The impact of the brands

Nowadays what is ruling the market is the adjustment to the new digital age and the required time for it. Everything happening fast and not having time to think about ourselves. However, because of the pandemic, we had to back to our homes without exception and start to create a “new habitat” for a long period of COVID time.

While some are thinking that all is going down, others are thinking that is time for opportunities. At that point, it said: “When someone is crying, there is also someone selling handkerchiefs”. That is why I would like to make a reflection on 3 home brands and their impact on our lives during the lockdown: Ikea, Alexa and iRobot.

Ikea

Ikea´s founder Ingvar Kamprad started by making small products such as pens, wallets, bedside tables … getting the most out of it using the few resources available to it. This is what explains one of the keys to the success of the brand. Later on, known as Ikea, it began to market products through a correspondence catalogue. This brought with it the problem for the consumer, of receiving damaged products due to transport and at the same time brought up the idea-solution to implement flat packaging and later self-assembly.

Policies such as commitment to the environment, social responsibility and equity among workers have made Ikea a benchmark brand with a responsible and committed vision.

But Ikea, going beyond just selling you a piece of furniture or an appliance, transmits comfort and accessibility when building your personal space. And here I want to highlight the great impact that the global pandemic has had in bonding more with the brand since most of us have spent all our time at home. The increasingly growing trend of investing, not in your house but in your personal space, is a reality. People will feel their emotional needs met by being at home, enjoying with their family or organizing the distribution of the same.

“95% of the world’s population during confinement made their home the center of their universe” – Ikea 2020, The big home reboot.

Alexa

Alexa, the voice-controlled virtual assistant arose, more than out of necessity, for a functional comfort at home to make easier our daily life with tasks such as obtaining information through the network, controlling interconnected devices, playing music, creating reminders, etc. etc.

Very busy people with a high volume of work outside the home, perhaps it would be more practical if someone or “something” reminded them that they had a meeting on such a day or that they had to do such a task for next week, or perhaps just got so tired from work would not want to connect the computer or stereo and it would be better to just say “Alexa play music to relax.”

We wake up and go to bed with technology and it is something that increasingly we will be living with at home. Trying to make our lives easier is one of the objectives of the Amazon Alexa brand, knowing that it is there when we need to solve a doubt or a requirement transmits confidence. After all, as Olga Llopis García and Javier Velilla Giménez mention: “a brand is the promise of an experience and has the power to influence our perceptions, attitudes and behaviours”.

Home automation is increasingly present in homes. The trend to have a smart home is growing stronger every day and that is why Amazon Alexa as a brand is a key piece.

iRobot

Before the Roomba model, other models were created for different purposes. iRobot was a brand of practical robots. In their evolution, it is clear that they were categorized as robots to discover, investigate or save lives. However they did not want to stay only in the military or research devices.

Breaking into the home environment was an incentive to boost the brand. They wanted a robot to be able to stand on its own to perform a basic task like cleaning. With the development, problems of durability, jams, pet hair or tangles, so could only motivate them to continue improving since as Colin Angle (CEO of iRobot Roomba) says: “Without innovation, there is no evolution”. Today the Roomba model is known as the robot that cleans your house by itself. Along with Ikea and Alexa, it is another brand with a great impact on people’s homes and lives, as Colin Angle also mentions: “The long-term goal of iRobot is to help older people live independently for a longer time”. At the end of the day, it provides us with domestic help and with it, more time to live for us.

Conclusion

In terms of marketing, IKEA takes the cake for the most complete brand. As Andy Stalman says in an interview:

“You have to be authentic, known, not forgetting where you come from and knowing where you want to go, being clear about your mission and your values”.

And as I mentioned in previous paragraphs, the inspiring story, social and environmental responsibility and being attitudinal, among other things, make it vitally important to connect with the user.

However, Alexa and iRobot include technology fields. We could say that they meet functional objectives with highly technical profiles to make our day-to-day more comfortable and practical. Compared to IKEA, both have brand gaps such as insecurity or uninspiring. The issue of privacy is something of great concern today as some companies are closely followed for the misuse and abuse of our personal data.