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How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

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Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#301

Post by euroderf »

designerarvid wrote: post #274

Clear and interesting names is extremely good customer experience. Most companies name their products straight from the ERP system, creating incomprehensible codes that sounds like they come from Star Trek. Ikea has pioneered so much within service design (design beyond the actual product). The in-store journey, the self-assembly, the assembly instructions, clear naming, clear product display, in-store restaurant exp…

The wordless instructions are generally great, except in the occasional instance where there's a confusing panel or two.

Has anyone ever seen an academic analysis of the visual "language" used ? Or even any articles about it, serious or humorous ?

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#302

Post by freddyfloof »

pseudohadamard wrote: post #247
fragmede wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really wanna get weird, there's those continents of Asia, Africa, and South America, full of different sounds to use for names. Ikea is Swedish, so they get to propagate Swedish culture to the rest of the world.

I can just imagine Chinese IKEA, their entire product list would be Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī s…

My favourite poem!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_...

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#303

Post by [deleted] »

fendy3002 wrote: post #300
throwa356262 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the opposite end of the spectrum we have Sony Mobile, where product names are probably assigned by their worst enemy. You can fully expect them to release a high end phone called Xperia one II 10 as successor to last year's Xperia one III And also a low-end phone called Xperia II 10 Ultra Making it impossible for buyers to know which phone to buy this year.

Microsoft's school of naming versions, windows (95->98->xp->vista->seven->8...) and xbox (360, one, series x)

[deleted]

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#304

Post by prmoustache »

eloisant wrote: post #220
hk__2 wrote: post #29

> Did you know that we name around 2,000-3,000 new products every year? I find this surprisingly high; I guess it’s _products_ and not _names_, meaning that five colors of the same product count as five new products but only one name.

They don't just sell furnitures, there is all the small accessories like cutting boards, plates, bowls, towels, cushions... Everything they're selling at their lowest floor before you reach the self-serve warehouse.

Also they insist on replacing perfectly good products to sell inferior ones (for bigger margins I guess).

Every visitor rave about and ask us where we bought our corkscrew but we can only reply it was in IKEA but they decided they are too good for us so replaced them with inferior ones. Same happened wuth a vegetable peeler that I let go when I divorced but should have fought for because I never found one as good and IKEA enshittification made sure I can't buy it again.

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#305

Post by jagaerglad »

thih9 wrote: post #290
senko wrote: post #40

My favorite is `fejka` for the artificial plant/flower. I think "being as widely-understandable pun as possible" is definitely one of their naming priorities.

Unsurprisingly, "fejka" means "fake" (at least in Swedish, according to google translate).

Yes, it's the verb though, "to fake". It's a quite recent loan from English,

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#306

Post by rootbear »

I was looking at IKEA's home automation stuff, some of which uses the name TRÅDFRI and I thought the "FRI" part sounded like "free" and sure enough this just means "wireless". I'm guessing the "TRÅD" part is possibly a cognate of English "thread", so "thread free" is a literal translation. (I don't speak Swedish so forgive me if I'm completely off on this.)

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#307

Post by hobo123 »

rypskar wrote: post #217
thomashabets2 wrote: post #193

As a Swede in London, it's annoying that IKEA staff don't understand you when you pronounce the names correctly. You have to change letters (e.g. å is not a with an accent. It's a different letter) and read it like you don't know the language.

I was surprised at a Jysk in Spain where I used the dialect pronunciation of a Norwegian city (saying Læknes for Leknes) when buying chairs with that name, and the girl not only understood me but used close to the same pronunciation when asking someone to get them from storage

I once mentioned a street name to a Dane, who didn't understand me, and when I showed her the written name she pronounced it the same way. Maybe sometimes people have weird assumptions how foreigners are supposed to sound.

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#308

Post by hobo123 »

fph wrote: post #198
te0006 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there three days ago, can comfirm. And if you want to stay overnight, you _of course_ sleep in the neighbouring IKEA Hotel! And if you check-in to the hotel first, you‘ll get a voucher for free entrance to the museum. Did I mention that an absolutely excellent breakfast is included in the very reasonable room rate? And in case you visit the museum in the near future, they currently have a special (temporary) ex…

But, in common with today's tech billionaires, ties to the Nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad#Fascist_involve...

They also had furniture built by prisoners in East Germany, and I don't think they got paid.

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#310

Post by afiori »

hunter2_ wrote: post #286
markvdb wrote: post #223

> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile. I present to you "Svalka" wine glasses. Dump", rubbish heap", or easy, promiscuous woman of ill repute in informal Baltic (and Slavic?) slang.

Does anyone else get tripped up by the word "avoid" being positioned to apply to each item in the series, but then logically it must only apply to some (the first and second out of 3) items? { avoid meanings, avoid affiliations, avoid fitting } My solution is generally to repeat the word for each item that needs it, but I can see how the repetitiveness isn't great either.

An Oxford comma before the or would make it clearer maybe
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