The case invites students to grapple with the strategic and ethical questions that arise when a large retail brand aligns its business goals with its equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) priorities.
Stepping into the shoes of the protagonist, students must decide whether to position Making Space as a high‑performing, inclusive‑marketing campaign, foregrounding familiar KPIs and keeping primary accountability with the Marketing team, or position it as a brand‑activism initiative, prioritizing metrics tied to shifts in power and opportunity in the home-furnishing retail sector, and involving a shared governance model with the Human Resources, Procurement, and EDI teams.
IKEA Canada: From Inclusive Marketing to Brand Activism
June Cotte, R. Chandrasekhar
Product #:W50635
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:Marketing, Strategy
Setting:Canada, 2025
Your Price:$9.71
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Learning Objectives
After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:
- Distinguish between inclusive marketing and brand activism.
- Evaluate the fit between IKEA’s stated EDI strategy and its proposed public activist stance.
- Design a marketing strategy that advances both commercial goals (kitchen sales, brand equity) and societal impact goals (representation of BIPOC creatives, industry norms) under real-world constraints.
- Anticipate stakeholder reactions—i.e., support, indifference, appropriation, and backlash—to the campaign and develop a considered response strategy.
- Propose a set of metrics and governance mechanisms that hold a brand accountable for its activism.