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The Swedish furniture giant has teamed up with the charity Shelter to raise consumer awareness of the country’s housing crisis. A double-edged initiative for the brand.
Narrow and unsanitary rooms, holes in the walls, mattresses on the floor… Strolling through the shelves of Ikea in Birmingham in recent days, British consumers must have been relatively surprised by the decoration. The Swedish furniture giant has teamed up with the charity Shelter, whose aim is to expose the housing crisis and the situation of homelessness in the country, for this consumer awareness campaign. Since March 7, the chain has modified four of its exhibition spaces, in Bristol, Birmingham, Hammersmith and Warrington, to reproduce the difficult environment in which Sam, Kate, Channah and Claire live, Britons who have all lost their accommodation for economic reasons.
Figures on the housing crisis in support, Ikea announces to support Shelter in its request to build 90,000 social housing units per year by 2030, explains the sign in a statement. “That brands try to defend causes is nothing new. On the other hand, they generally do so in a very positive way. There, it is a rare campaign because it is rather unpleasant to see, even provocative”, points out Nathalie Fleck, professor of consumer psychology at the university