IKEA's iconic OOH campaign with Bollywood wordplay...

Bollywood dialogues have a strange kind of permanence in Indian pop culture, lines like “Subah ho gayi mamu” or “Mere paas maa hai” aren’t just movie references, they’re shorthand for emotions, jokes, and shared memories.

IKEA India tapped into exactly this cultural muscle with its OOH campaign, turning familiar film dialogues and songs into clever wordplay built around its product names.

Instead of pushing discounts or features, IKEA played with recognition.

The billboards worked because people didn’t have to “process” them, a passerby would read the line, instantly get the reference, smile, and then notice the product name woven into it.

That moment of recognition is powerful, especially in outdoor advertising where attention spans are short and distractions are endless.

By borrowing from cinema, IKEA made sure the message landed within seconds.

What made the campaign stronger was its localisation.

The brand didn’t use one generic joke across cities.

In Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, the wordplay reflected local language, rhythm, and pop references, making the ads feel native rather than imported.

This helped IKEA, a global brand, feel culturally plugged in instead of distant. It wasn’t “a furniture brand advertising in India”, it was a brand speaking the same cultural language as the people passing by the hoardings.

Placement played a big role, too.

These billboards were positioned in high-traffic zones where people see the same messages repeatedly during daily commutes.

Each repeated view reinforced the joke and the product name together.

Over time, the humour turned into recall, you might forget the exact line, but you remember IKEA being clever, and that’s brand-building doing its job.

According to Jayendra Gupta, Country Integrated Media Manager at IKEA India, the intent was to tap into iconic film dialogues that people already hold close to their hearts, and connect that emotional familiarity with IKEA’s everyday products. It reflects IKEA’s larger global approach of using pop culture, but adapted sharply for India’s diverse and regional sensibilities.

So does wordplay in OOH still work, or has it become too mainstream? The IKEA campaign suggests that wordplay isn’t the problem, laziness is. When wordplay is rooted in culture, tied meaningfully to the product, and placed where people can’t ignore it, it still cuts through the clutter. In a landscape full of loud visuals and hard-selling headlines, a smart line that makes someone smile can sometimes do far more.

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