By Kailyn Despotakis, Johana Langova, McKenzie Middendorf, Catherine Sedor, Mikael Torpegaard, David Winkel

MEDIA PLAN

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MARKETING SITUATION COMPETITIVE EXPENDITURE ANALYSIS

Created by Ingvar Kampard in 1943 in southern Sweden, IKEA has become a staple furniture retailer worldwide over the years. Today, IKEA has 355 IKEA stores in 29 countries and counting (IKEA, 2017). Europe, the founding continent of IKEA, leads the business with the most opened stores and centers, with 242 stores, 15 pickup and order points, 15 store distribution sites, 18 customer distribution sites and 26 shopping centers (IKEA, 2017). North America follows Europe but has significantly lower numbers in comparison with only 56 stores, 6 pickup and order points, 8 store distribution sites and 8 customer distribution sites (IKEA, 2017).

IKEA currently has more than 780 million customers, and with the rise of technology IKEA has become an online market for people worldwide (IKEA, 2017). IKEA.com has received 2.1 billion visits and that number still continues to grow (“About the IKEA group - IKEA”).

IKEA’s goal is to make people’s lives better, so the company constantly looks for ways to improve their products for their customers (About the IKEA group - IKEA”). IKEA produces and sells products that people around the world would enjoy. The design of products ranges from simple and straightforward to products that are hard wearing, easy to live with and affordable (“About the IKEA group - IKEA”). Although their home furnishings provide customers unique and stylish options, customers ultimately purchase IKEA products because of the products’ functionality (“About the IKEA group - IKEA”). Designers are able to be creative with low-cost raw materials and manufacturing processes to create functional yet affordable products (“About the IKEA group - IKEA”).

In 2017, IKEA’s total revenue grew by 3.5 percent, which amounted to 34.1 billion Euros or $45.3 billion (IKEA, 2017). IKEA retail sales grew in 26 out of 29 markets, with China being the fastest growing retail market (IKEA, 2017). IKEA strives to be a furniture retailer that is convenient for their customers, from their shopping experience online and in stores to the assembly of their products. To continue to be a company of convenience, IKEA wants to expand the number of stores.

IKEA uses different strategies to promote its brand and products. Through event sponsorships, sales promotions, catalogues, and social media, IKEA uses strategic methods to create awareness of the brand. Social media is mainly used to promote stores, products, and sales promotions (JGDB, 2016). Through IKEA’s social media platforms, they’ve set up a separate profile for each market (“A Deep Dive into the Social Media Habits and Performance of IKEA”, 2017). The specialized profiles help target specific audiences and help give them a more personalized experience. There are currently 195 IKEA social media profiles (“A Deep Dive into the Social Media Habits and Performance of IKEA”, 2017).

Facebook Pages 49

Twitter Handles 74

YouTube Channels 49

Instagram Accounts 21

LinkedIn Accounts 2

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MARKETING PROBLEM

After gathering information we have found that the biggest problems IKEA faces are lack of sales and service in the U.S. The lack of sales can be connected to several issues related to poor service, such as IKEA’s products being too expensive when shipping costs are factored in and simply not having enough stores around the U.S to make purchasing products in person easy. These issues hinder IKEA’s growth as a company, specifically in the U.S. As IKEA recognizes in their annual report, “We are committed to making IKEA more accessible to those who cannot afford IKEA products and services today, and for those who cannot get to us where we operate” (IKEA, 2017), yet they have only just begun to do so in the U.S.

IKEA has 355 stores worldwide and made 34.1 billion Euros annually in total sales in 2017 (IKEA, 2017). However, there are many states and regions in the U.S. without easy access to an IKEA store, thus impacting the company’s ability to gain more customers in the U.S. IKEA has only 56 stores in the U.S. compared to 242 stores in Europe. The following image shows the insufficiency of IKEA stores in the U.S. and the areas of the country lacking convenient access to an IKEA store or shopping center:

The problem IKEA faces when it comes to U.S. customers not being able to get to their stores is a large part of why IKEA has greater revenue in Europe compared to the U.S. In 2016, Europe made up 69 percent of IKEA’s sales shares while the U.S. made up only 18 percent (Statista, 2017). These numbers support the fact that with more stores available for consumers in Europe, more sales are driven in comparison to the lack of stores and sales in the U.S. According to data, the U.S. was one of the leading selling countries for IKEA products in 2016, yet the amount of stores and shopping centers in the U.S. is drastically lower than that in Europe (Statista, 2017). The majority of the total revenue is made in Europe, but looking at current success and desire for IKEA products in the U.S. there is great potential forexpanding.

Another problem IKEA faces is a lack of popularity among customers. Since IKEA is a European brand, there isn’t as much brand awareness in the United States in comparison to competitor brands such as At Home, Walmart, and Ashley Home Furniture Store. Additionally, high shipping costs, due to the fact that products have to ship from Europe, for U.S. customers makes the brand unfavorable for some, because the product is not necessarily the most high-end, high-quality product compared to products of American competitors mentioned previously.

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COMPETITOR ANALYSIS: At Home

One of IKEA’s more recently discovered competitors is At Home, founded in 1979 in Schertz, Texas. The store base now consists of 123 stores that span across 30 states. Each store averages approximately 120,000 sq. feet and stores that have been open for more than a year average over $6 million in net sales. With less than $1 billion in revenue this past fiscal year, At Home is classified as an “emerging growth company,” which is why it is considered a competitor of IKEA (At Home Group Inc., n.d.). Company net sales have been steadily growing each year as more stores are opened around the country. Net sales increased by $143.4 million this past fiscal year ending in 2017 (At Home Group Inc., 2017).

Budget: Advertising costs, which include billboard, radio, newspaper, digital and other mediums, were approximately 17.4 million in 2017. At Home’s total advertising expenses were, $12.4 million and $8.1 million for the fiscal years ended January 28, January 30, 2016 and January 31, 2015, respectively. (At Home Group Inc., 2017).

Media selection: At Home recently increased their focus on social media building with home decor influencers, by leveraging Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and various blogs. Weekly email marketing is also being put to use to inspire subscribers with seasonally relevant decor. At Home has also entered into a partnership with Synchrony Bank to provide a consumer credit card program that includes loyalty incentives for customers; this is expected to launch in the 2018 fiscal year (At Home Group Inc., 2017). Traditional media platforms such as radio and outdoor advertising are also used to build a broader awareness of At Home in markets where the highest impact can be achieved.

Timing of media delivery: When new stores are opened, the brand is launched using a tactical strategy that has been evolved through testing. This strategy includes a cost efficient mix of radio, outdoor, direct mail, social, digital, events and public relations. This same media mix is also leveraged in select markets to drive traffic during key seasons, such as summer with outdoor product offering and during important holidays with many broad holiday decor assortments (At Home Group Inc., 2017.) Other important info: Through customer research, At Home has discovered that many home decor enthusiasts, the store’s main demographic, browse online for ideas, inspiration and general product information prior to visiting stores. After this realization, At Home upgraded their website to enable customers to view their product assortment online. The website contains search functionality and a mobile friendly website focused on an inspirational shopping experience showcasing decorating ideas with broad product assortment to drive traffic into stores (At Home Group Inc., 2017).

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COMPETITOR ANALYSIS: Walmart

Another of IKEA’s competitors is Walmart, one of the world’s biggest retailers. Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, the first Walmart opened its doors in Rogers, Arkansas (Walmart Corporate). From there Walmart grew into one of the largest retailers in the world. With over 260 million customers visiting their 11,695 stores in 28 countries and e-commerce websites in 11 countries, it’s no wonder that Walmart is considered one of the largest retailers in the world (Walmart Units Counts by Country). Just in 2017, Walmart’s revenue was $485.9 billion (Walmart Annual Report 2017).

Budget: Walmart’s worldwide advertising budget was approximately $2.9 billion for the year of 2017, which is nearly half a billion more than the advertising budget in 2016. In 2016, Walmart’s advertising budget was $2.5 billion (Walmart Annual Report 2017).

Media selection: Walmart utilizes all forms of media with a recent focus on social media (Econsultancy). According to Walmart’s annual report, most advertising costs came mainly from print, television and digital advertisements. Walmart uses a wide media selection to reach as many of their wide audience as they can. When looking at Walmart’s various social media, we can see that the company has 34 million followers on their main Facebook page, 1 million followers on Instagram, 919,000 followers on Twitter and 141,000 Pinterest followers. This doesn’t even count in each local Walmart store social media and all of Walmart’s various side companies and campaign social media and advertising. They post frequently on these social media platforms and engage their followers by commenting back on statuses, which truly shows how well they are keeping up with the times. Walmart also has their own magazine, Walmart Today, which they utilize to reach consumers (Walmart Today). With various advertising campaigns in and out of stores, magazines and partnerships with various companies and with social media, it’s clear that Walmart has a wide media selection that they aren’t afraid of making bigger.

Timing of media delivery: Walmart doesn’t have much information on timing of media delivery. As can be seen from their media selection and when one browses their various social media, Walmart makes sure to keep their followers up to date with new ventures and happenings via their social platforms, especially with their “local” store social media.

Other important information: Walmart’s social media chief has over 5 million followers, which only helps with the argument that Walmart is doing something good in today's social media driven world (Adage). Walmart also owns numerous other franchises in the United States, such as Walmart Supercenter, Neighborhood Market, Sam’s Club, Walmart Discount Store, Amigo, Walmart To Go and Walmart on Campus To GO (Walmart Units Counts by Country). Overall, there are 4,672 Walmart stores in the United States, totaling 5,332 Walmart stores and franchises together in the United States (Walmart Units Counts by Country).

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COMPETITOR ANALYSIS: Ashley Home Store

Another big competitor of IKEA is Ashley Furniture Home Store. Ashley Furniture Industries is the No. 1 furniture manufacturer in the industry. Their team lives and breathes a “dirty fingernail” approach that breeds success unlike any other (Ashley Furniture Industries, 2018). In 1945, Carlyle Weinberger founded Ashley Furniture Corporation as a sales organization with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois (Ashley Furniture Industries, 2018). In 2014, Ashley Furniture reached over 500 stores worldwide (Ashley Furniture Industries, 2018). A big reason that Ashley Furniture is a competitor with IKEA, is that they have over 350 different varieties of furniture to offer, similar to the wide variety of home furnishing products that IKEA offers. Ashley Furniture just replaced their CEO in 2017, and the company is now operated under Todd Wanek (Forbes, 2018).

Budget: For the last two years, Ashley has spent over $100 million annually on media advertising (The Spruce, 2017). Ashley Furniture’s total revenue in 2017 was $4.6 billion (Ashley Furniture Industries, 2018).

Media selection: Ashley Furniture has over 42,000 followers on various social media platforms. Ashley Furniture’s top social media platforms are: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. They also highly rely on radio ads as one of their big forms of advertisement (Versa Creative, 2018). Ashley Furniture hopes to use social media to encourage brand engagement for consumers and to spur consumers to talk with one other about Ashley products. For example, consumers can share and comment on photographs of their favorite furniture pieces with other visitors on the company’s Facebook page (Vertical Web Media, 2017).

Timing of media delivery: Ashley Furniture doesn’t have much to say about their media delivery except that when a new store opens, they make sure to post on every social media platform they have to try and spread the word about it. (The Spruce, 2017).

Other important information: Their stores are 45,000 square feet and they strike your attention by the vast variety of furniture products being offered. On taking a closer look you notice their low prices. From its modest beginning in 1945 as a purveyor of occasional tables and wall units, Ashley Furniture is now one of the highest selling brands in America (Ashley Furniture Industries, 2018). Ashley Furniture claims quality, style, selection and service to be its defining characteristics, contributing to its overall success in dominating America’s home furniture industry.

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MARKETING OBJECTIVES

Ultimately the goal of this plan is to increase IKEA sales in the U.S. To do this, there

are a variety of things that need to happen. IKEA must expand and grow within the U.S. to make its products more accessible for customers. The marketing objectives for this plan are as follows:

● To increase awareness of IKEA stores in Midwestern states. ● To increase IKEA sales share in the U.S. by 5 percent. ● To continue to invest in product development to lower prices for IKEA consumers,

eliminate steep shipping costs to the U.S, and encourage U.S. customers to purchase IKEA products.

● To increase popularity among U.S. consumers by increasing product and brand visibility in the market against competitors.

● To maintain IKEA’s goal of constantly seeking to be “a little better, simpler and more efficient,” (IKEA, 2017) through products and services.

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MEDIA OBJECTIVES

Target Audience This plan will focus on targeting males and females ages 18-34 living in the Midwestern region of the United States.

Geographic Coverage This plan will focus on targeting the Midwest region of the U.S. because of the potential for growth and exposure due to the fact that there are already some IKEA stores in the region and therefore some awareness of the brand. Continuity/Pattern of scheduling This plan will implement a pulsing pattern of scheduling, participating in year round brand advertising while emphasizing advertisement of IKEA products during peak times that consumers purchase furniture (i.e. college move in, holidays, etc.).

Reach/Frequency To reach individuals, 70 percent of male and female ages 18 to 34 living in Midwestern states, an average of five times.

Creative Implications The plan will use visual media to demonstrate the simple steps to assembling IKEA products, a unique feature of IKEA furniture, to encourage the target audience to purchase IKEA products.

Budget limitations Based off of IKEA’s previous global spending on advertisement, this plan will be executed within a budget of $10 million from April 2018 to April 2019.

Promotion Support Advertisements will be utilized to promote in-store sales during the holidays and other peak seasons to increase awareness and promote IKEA sales.

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TARGET AUDIENCE ANALYSIS

The target audience for this media plan includes men and women in Midwestern states, ages 18 to 34, in the middle class, that are first time home buyers, renters, or college students living in dorms. The Statistical Atlas declares that the population of the Midwest is 68,179,351 people; 8.32 percent of this population fit into the target demographic, which totals 5,672,522 people (Statistical Atlas, 2017). This media plan aims to reach 70 percent of the target audience, which would be 3,970,766 men and women between the ages of 18 to 34. The plan aims to reach each person a frequency of 5 times. This frequency and reach allows the advertisements to generate about 20 million impressions, which provides a gross rating point (GRP) of 350.

We are choosing to take an offensive strategy for the geographic media objective of this plan in order to explore one of IKEA’s smaller markets that currently exists in hopes of increasing sales in the United States. This media plan will target the Midwestern states because it’s a region in the United States that currently has a limited amount of stores in comparison to other regions. Since the Midwest only houses 1.4 percent of IKEA stores, we have chosen a budget of, $10

million for one year, due to the fact that IKEA spends around $120 million per year on advertising globally. By targeting a region of the United States where only a few IKEA stores exist, we hope to increase awareness of the brand to ultimately increase U.S. sales. We aim to reach 70 percent of the target population due to the fact that IKEA is a less-known brand in the U.S., specifically in the Midwest. By reaching 70 percent of the target population in the Midwest, we can create an increased customer base while increasing brand awareness in an area of IKEA’s market that currently lacks desired awareness.

For this media plan our target audience fits into the category of “middle class,” so this demographic is likely to have a budget when looking to buy furniture for their homes. These individuals who belong to the middle class are known to look for products that are high in quality but affordable as well (Pratap, 2017). The target market of IKEA on a global scale is the middle class, which is a reason why IKEA sells high quality yet affordable home furnishing products. Also, people looking for affordable furniture may be more accepting of the idea of assembling their furniture. IKEA furniture is unique in the fact that you can easily assemble it yourself, which our target audience resonates with. By focusing on this certain quality of IKEA products we will be able to appeal to the target audience who may need functional yet quality furniture in small spaces that can be set up quickly, such as dorm rooms or apartments.

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Middle class consumers are known to look for products that are exceptional in terms of quality and design while being affordable. We want to incorporate a pulsing schedule in order to appeal to the target audience, based on the assumption that this audience looks for affordable furniture options, especially during specific times such as holidays, college move in and prime real estate times, which are end of summer. Additionally, by implementing promotional materials during peak times, such as holidays, IKEA will appeal to the middle class looking for affordable yet quality items. We chose to aim for a frequency of five, mainly due to the fact that it will most likely take more than one exposure to IKEA content in order for consumers to become aware and interested enough to venture to an IKEA store or visit the store website. We will focus on frequency during the peak advertising times that we have mentioned in the pulsing schedule, such as holidays and the months of July and August, which are leading up to college move in. The brand has been able to attract the millennial and middle class consumers in large hoards (Pratap, A., 2017).

This plan’s target audience consists of individuals who, generally, are single or recently married and live in economically developed areas that have a fast pace of life (Hunang, S., 2017). Those still in college will be looking for furniture for their college homes while recent graduates will be furnishing their first apartments and homes. The target audience looks at the quality of products while also bargain hunting, making IKEA an ideal place for these individuals. We believe that all of these objectives in combination with the chosen target audience will allow for this plan to be most successful in increasing awareness of IKEA as well as increasing IKEA sales in the United States.

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MEDIA STRATEGY AND SELECTION Magazines Strategy: Our media plan will utilize magazines as a strategy to help obtain our media objects like reach and frequency, promotions and creative implications. Rationale: Magazines will visually advertise IKEA’s products and promotions during the time of the ad to our target audience of 18 to 34 year old adults. According to Entrepreneur (n.d.), magazine advertisements are beneficial in that they allow advertisers to reach a large audience and also have a longer shelf life compared to other publications like newspapers. The article pointed to the fact that people hang on to magazine publications and will flip through them more than once, exposing them again to the advertisement (Entrepreneur, n.d.). Because magazines have a better chance of being looked at more than once, it is important for our media plan to utilize the vehicle to help achieve our goal of reaching 70 percent of our audience at least five times. Magazines also allows us to creatively promote IKEA sales or products. In addition, according to Advertising Media Planning, magazines are able to produce advertisements with high quality coloring, which will help advertise IKEA’s products and promotions (Sissors & Baron, 2016). Selection: For our plan, we will utilize print ads in People magazine. The reason being, according to the Statistics Portal People magazine reached 84.83 million people in the month of January 2018 alone (Statista, 2018). That is a significant number of potential customers in our target audience which will help IKEA to magnify reach. According to 35 Eye Opening People Magazine Demographics, 70% of the readership of People magazine are women ages 16-45 (Brandon Gaille, 2016). Our target audience fits directly into this demographic for People and it would be beneficial for us to print ads in this magazine.

Along with printing in People magazine we believe it would be beneficial for us to also print ads in Cosmopolitan magazine. Cosmopolitan reaches more than 17 million readers each month and is the largest magazine in the world (Hearst, n.d.). Not only does this specific magazine help us to maximize reach, it also targets our exact audience. The target audience of Cosmopolitan are ages 18-34 (Hearst, 2000). Printing in these two magazines will help us with our creative implications we have set in place, because we will be able to use visual elements to help us show IKEA products.

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Sainsbury Formula: This formula studies the total reach of our chosen magazine platforms across our target audience demographic of Midwesterners ages 18-34. Total People Viewership (a): 3,970,766 (Statistical Atlas, 2017) / 84,830,000 (Statista, 2018). = 4.68% Total Cosmopolitan Viewership (b): 3,970,766 (Statistical Atlas, 2017) / 17,000,000 (Hearst, n.d.). = 23.35% People Advertisements (a) and Cosmopolitan Advertisements (b): Net Reach = .0468 + .2335 - (.0468 * .2335) Net Reach = .2803 - (.0109) Net Reach = .2694 * 100 = 26.94% Television Strategy: One of the potential strategies that we would like to implement into our plan would be to utilize spot television. This will allow us to hone in on desired geographic areas and maximize reach while also allowing us to implement a pulsing pattern of scheduling and utilize creative elements. Rationale: We believe that with this strategy our media objectives focused on geography, pattern of scheduling, creative implications, reach and promotion will be covered. According to CNBC, television is one of the most effective advertising mediums (CNBC Catalyst, 2016). In fact, according to findings in the Nielsen Q1 2017 Total Audience Report, the study found that adults from age eighteen up watch videos on television for nearly five hours a day, while only watching approximately 19 minutes of video on multimedia devices. (Nielsen, 2017). Rich Lehrfeld, the Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Communications at American Express states (Poggi, 2016), “TV as a traditional medium is still important. When we run a heavy TV schedule, we see a lift in sales and product awareness. We need to run two weeks of digital to get the reach of one day of broadcast.” Also, another reason to use television is due to the ability it has to reach both selective and mass markets (Advertising Media Planning, p.240). In fact, spot television allows planners to use markets in numerous combinations, while also allowing for the geographic targeting all the way down to the neighborhood level (Advertising Media Planning, p. 249). Due to this, using spot television as a media strategy, IKEA will most significantly be able to make an impact through being able to select specific geographical areas for the airing of their commercials. Additionally, a pulsing pattern of scheduling would easily be implemented by purchasing more commercials during target months, such as August and December.

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Television will allow for IKEA to meet the desired reach, as we can strategically target certain geographic regions with spot television in addition to the fact that television is a widely utilized media by audiences of all ages. The visual aspect of television allows IKEA the room to be creative in their approach, specifically giving IKEA leeway to incorporate product and product assembly visuals into their commercials. Selection: Our plan will utilize spot television commercials in the Midwest region, placing 30-second ads on primetime dayparts. These dayparts will allow us to hit both men and women within our target age range of 18-34 as adults 25-54 tune into late night news and primetime covers all key demographics (Sissors & Baron, 2010). Advertisements will be run uninterrupted for one month at a time allowing us to utilize a pulsing pattern of advertisement, focusing on August er which targets back to school shopping and also November which targets the holiday shopping season. Major networking stations that we will purchase spot television advertisements on are ABC, NBC and CBS because those networks have shows during desired dayparts that are popular in the Midwest, such as Modern Family, The Tonight Show, NCIS and The Big Bang Theory (Katz, 2016). Utilizing spot advertisements during these dayparts on these networks will allow us to target specific geographic areas in the Midwest in order to increase brand awareness of IKEA while also targeting our key audience demographic and implementing a desired pulsing schedule. Billboards Strategy: Another potential strategy that we plan to implement into our campaign is Billboards. Billboards will boost sales to spark interest and awareness in our target market. These billboards will allow us to be creative and cover a wide demographic of people. They also will be cheap for us to create and display. Rationale: Our media plan will also utilize billboards as an out-of-home advertising strategy. Obtaining brand exposure, building reach, and targeting our market audience are some of the reasons to use billboards as a method of advertising and this is exactly what IKEA needs. (Sissors & Baron, 2010) We believe that utilizing billboards will strongly help cover our objectives of ultimately increasing IKEA’s sales in the U.S. with it’s high conversion rate. According to ATA Outdoor, over two-thirds of travelers make their purchasing decisions at a location away from home (ATAOutdoor, 2018) Furthermore, these billboards can be seen morning, noon, and night. By putting the billboards in several Midwestern states, they will reach our target demographic audience 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A study done by Arbitron showed how 71% of the United States residents aged 18 or older would notice the advertising message on the roadside billboards most of the time. (Williams, 2009) With this in mind, we are confident that billboards are going to help cover our marketing objectives.

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Selection: Using Billboards will allow us to target our ideal customers. One of the main advantages of advertising on billboards is the fact that you can personalize your ad campaign based on demographics, and that is exactly what we plan to do (Penneco). With these billboard ads, we will have at least five of them and they will be placed strategically across the Midwestern states in which we think we will reach the highest potential target market. Going off of that, our target audience will be outdoor commuters. The average amount of times you get a chance to look at a billboard while driving is two seconds (Suggett, 2017). So that means we will have to be creative, but also build recognition and loyalty by consistently communicating your brand across all of your advertising mediums. Utilizing billboards will allow IKEA to demonstrate the ease of assembling their products while also providing a visual of products. Though it might be tempting to switch up the layout, use different fonts, or change color schemes, it’s not an effective advertising strategy. Consumers become loyal to brands they are familiar with, know, and trust (Penneco Outdoor Advertising, 2017). So we would have the IKEA logo in plain sight, and an easy way to contact us for more information about the store somewhere on the billboard. We would start putting the billboards up during the holidays, because that seems to be the time when most people are traveling. We think that using a billboard would be the best way to expand on our creativity and frequency to our target audience.

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BUDGET ALLOCATION The budget for our campaign was set at a maximum $10 million for one year, between the months of April 2018 to April 2019. The budget will be divided between three main types of media: television, magazines and outdoor advertising.

Television- 62%, Billboards- 6%, Magazines- 32% Television Our television costs will consist of approximately 50 percent of our overall budget, which will total $5 million. Television commercial spots can be expensive, however the average adult watches five hours of television a day, thus truly allowing us to spread our message (Nielsen, 2017). Our plan with television is to utilize spot television commercials in the Midwest, where we will be placing 30 second ads during prime time in August and then again in November. We chose August which targets back-to-school time and November which targets holiday shopping. On average, a 30-second commercial in broadcast prime time for 2017-2018 should cost $134,000 (Poggi, 2017).

We however will be focusing on The Tonight Show and The Big Bang Theory, since The Tonight Show will focus on adults 25-54 within out demographics and The Big Bang Theory which is a popular primetime show that covers all our key demographics (Sissors & Baron, 2010). We also decided to choose The Tonight Show since it plays every weekday, ensuring that the IKEA commercial would air five times a week during this time, ensuring a better chance for the commercial to be seen. We then chose The Big Bang due to it’s intense popularity and wide audience range. For the months of August and November, a 30 second commercial aired each weekday once during the The Tonight Show will cost approximately $2,193,750 for the two months (Lynch, 2015). The commercial will also be aired when The Big Bang Theory is on, once a week for both of the months, which will cost us $2,573,172 for all nine weeks within August and November (Poggi, 2017). Thus, in total our television advertising will cost us $4,766,922.

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Magazines Based on the Average Cost of Advertising in a Fashion Magazine, the cost of a full-

color, full-page ad in Cosmopolitan is $237,000 for one month (Alley, B. 2011). Since we are planning to hit the holiday season and the back to school season we will run these ads in August, September, November and December. This will end up costing us $948,000 to run one ad in the magazine per month. According to the 2017 People Media Kit, it costs around $371,500 for a full page spread in People magazine (People Media Kit, 2017). Since we are targeting the back to school season again we will follow the same spread that we followed for Cosmopolitan, we will follow the same schedule for People. This will end up costing us $1,486,000. This means that we will end up spending $2,434,000 on magazine advertising. This means that we have allocated 24.34 percent of our budget to magazine advertising. According to our Sainsbury formula, the magazines will reach 29.64 percent of our target audience which is why we have allocated this amount of our budget to this specific advertising. This will ensure that our reach and frequency are met. Billboards

Our billboard cost will end up being about $3,000,000, which is about 30 percent of our budget. The billboards will be placed in midwestern states (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri) located just off of the downtown highways. According to Our Pastime, the most viewed billboards are in the downtown areas, but it happens to be while people are driving (Our Pastime, 2017). This is how we came to the conclusion to place the billboards downtown, just off the highway. We chose the midwest because we are trying to have more ads in areas where we want more people to be aware of IKEA, and near a place where eventually we plan to open up more stores. Billboard advertising costs roughly $1,500 to $4,000 a month in most small- to midwestern cities. As we want to reach the largest amount of our target audience as possible, we aim to place the billboards downtown, which in any city can drive the price up to as much as $15,000 (Fit Small Business, 2017).

We would like to start by placing at least 10 billboards in each midwestern states we are focusing on. Eventually we will make that amount of billboards greater. We would start placing the billboards in the summer, and pay for them up to a year to manage how well we think they are helping our campaign. For our first year, it would roughly cost about $240,000- $480,000 to place 10 billboards in one state off of the highways. It could be up to as much as $3 million to place 10 billboards in five different midwestern states. Budget Flowchart

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