Ikea Canada is putting more of its marketing budget into television, beginning with the launch this week of its new fall campaign.

While the company will continue to use a broad range of media, it has reduced its investment in magazines.

Yoakim Gip, North American marketing manager, says the company has always had a strong belief in tv, but didn’t have the budget to use it strategically.

Ikea has been using television in Canada mainly to promote sales, but not as strategically and consistently as it will this year.

The new campaign was created by Roche Macaulay & Partners with media handled by Media Buying Services.

One 30-sec. spot is on air, and the newspaper and magazine component is also underway.

Andy Macaulay, the agency’s senior vice-president, says the advertising combines a brand-building objective with ‘immediate traffic goals.

‘The tv [commercial] demonstrates the arrival of a whole whack of new stuff at Ikea, and the objective is to say, `Come and have a look at it.”

With the distribution of the 1996/97 catalogue in mid-August, Ikea also rolled out its new Home Shopping division, from which customers can call and order product without having to make a trip to an Ikea store.

The catalogue, which publicizes the division’s 1-800 number, is the first national communications for Home Shopping, but Macaulay says several other things have been planned to support it.

The concept began testing this February in Quebec, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, but the 1-800 number has recently been opened up to cover the rest of the provinces.

On the corporate front, Ikea has recently centralized its marketing department in the u.s.

Gip, Canadian marketing manager for the past two years, has moved to Philadelphia as North American marketing manager, with responsibility for external marketing.

He says the centralization is a natural progression of reorganization that began two years ago.

Ikea had three different companies in North America, U.S. East Coast, U.S. West Coast and Canada, each with an area manager and separate marketing departments.

Two years ago, the divisions in the u.s. were merged.

‘The next step was to streamline all of North America,’ says Gip. ‘I think it’s quite a natural process, especially for a concept company as we are at Ikea.

‘It’s the same stores and same range of product more or less, with some adaptation to the range.’

While the marketing has been centralized, Gip says he will continue using different agencies for the time being, since this year’s marketing plans, both in Canada and the u.s., are underway.

But he does not rule out the possibility of change.

‘It’s kind of strange to treat North America as one market unit and talk about the similarities and at the same time continue with many different agencies.’

He says one of the ways he is considering handling advertising is by assigning the existing North American agencies different parts of the business which comprise the stores, the catalogue, Home Shopping, and the Ikea Family loyalty program.

Direct response advertising and direct marketing for Ikea Family is handled by Ammirati Puris Lintas of Toronto.

u.s. advertising is handled by Deutsch Advertising Agency of New York.

With the centralization and restructuring that the company is undergoing, Gip says it’s more important than ever to have people working on the business who are familiar with it.