Owen's View: No more Gnomes!

The not-so-friendly garden Gnome.

Something sinister is lurking in our gardens as summer is drawing closer and IKEA is challenging us to fight back.







With its dramatic music, and numerous cinematic references, we think the new advert from IKEA is great! Created by Mother (London), the campaign captures an all out turf war between a family and their garden gnomes, who are getting the boot to be replaced by IKEA's modern and stylish garden furniture.



Film buffs will notice the hints of 'Platoon' and 'Apocalypse Now', and music lovers should appreciate the orchestral cover of Mötley Crüe's 'Time for Change', performed by The Palace of Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and The Heritage Singers. All that said, the plight of the Gnomes has lead to some backlash towards the advert, regarding the level of violence towards the garden dwellers, one critic even stated:

"The advert seems to express the worst excesses of imperialistic bombast. Encouraging people to laugh at creatures being thrown out of their homes and blown to pieces is extremely sinister in my book."

A still from the advert.

The 'Platoon' scene.

 In our opinion it's the Gnomes themselves that are sinister, in our book they are similar to clowns, and they can be a bit creepy too! IKEA and Mother are right when they say Gnomes are "tired, old fashioned and uninspired", we're sure there is a place in the world for the Gnome community, but nowadays that's not in our gardens.

The 'Apocalypse Now' scene.

Currently, as a family going through the green fingered challenge of taking on a front and back garden that have not been tendered since the late 1950's, the advert resonates. Trying to take aspects of the 'inherited' garden, yet bring our personality to our home, and at the same time add value to the property, means finding a balance is hard, but one thing is for sure, there will be no Gnomes in the garden. That's not to say there won't be one in the house...

'Deadly'- The Firetrap Gnome.

Meet Deadly, some of you may recognise him as the Firetrap Gnome, who has been featuring in marketing campaigns for Firetrap since 2004. We have one of these sat on our mantel piece. He is a cool Gnome, he's ditched the red hat and moved forward with the times, something which IKEA is encouraging the family in this advert, and the nation, to do.

IKEA have always been about moving forward, pushing the boundaries and using big and dramatic stunts to wow consumers. We've found our favourite promotional stunts from IKEA branches all over the world. 


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

What do you think of the new advert? And, possibly more importantly, what do you think of Gnomes?