Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:19
Alright episode 92 I love the dance to the intro music that’s pretty bitchin
Zoe Mock 0:24
I started a wave and didn’t finish it.
Don Mock 0:26
Oh, well, I’m not very I’m not very limber. I’m getting a little bit older
Zoe Mock 0:30
This is why the podcast needs to be on video.
Don Mock 0:32
Yeah, it would be an interesting experience on YouTube. Does anybody really want to watch themselves though?
Zoe Mock 0:39
And we’d need people watching them.
Don Mock 0:40
Yeah, it would be upsetting when the YouTube views are like six
Zoe Mock 0:44
Yeah. But the podcast listeners are in the 1000s.
Don Mock 0:49
Well, yeah, let’s hope so. Yeah, for sure. All right, so episode, What are we on? 92. We’re back. We’re back with Zoe. We just had lunch. It was delicious. We talked about football, gearing up for the year and I said hey, you want to do quick pod?
Zoe Mock 1:06
Always Yes.
Don Mock 1:07
Yeah. Yeah. So I thought we haven’t done one of these in a while. I thought we’d do a little brand review rather than trying to come up with other you know, we did one on Adidas back in the day and sort of brands we know and love and things like that. Right. So, so one of the brands you love. I know I’m springing this on you, right? So oh, it’s about to be split. Is IKEA. IKEA is a great brand. I love it. You love IKEA.
Zoe Mock 1:33
I love IKEA.
Don Mock 1:33
What’s your initial impression about IKEA and why do you love IKEA? Like what does IKEA do for you?
Zoe Mock 1:38
I go to IKEA to walk through the maze. And it’s genuinely calming.
Don Mock 1:43
Really? Well there are a lot of people that hate going
Zoe Mock 1:47
Yeah, but I get to see all the furniture I get to sit in the chairs. I go to chair school. I get to sit in chairs and judge them.
Don Mock 1:53
This is true. We have a couple of those chairs at home now.
Zoe Mock 1:55
Get some Swedish meatballs. I actually don’t use the cafeteria very much. But like It’s four o’clock in the afternoon. I need a new storage solution for XYZ. Oh, the marketplace.
Don Mock 2:06
Yeah. And get your lingonberry soda
Zoe Mock 2:09
exactly on the way out get my $1 humongous chocolate bar.
Don Mock 2:12
Do they still have those? Okay. I feel like they had something didn’t they have an ice cream cone at one point?
Zoe Mock 2:17
It’s 25 cents for for like a frozen yogurt cone. So you buy a token and then you put the 20 like you put the token in the machine and it does it for you. It’s a whole automated.
Don Mock 2:26
Okay, but is it? Is it a scam and that you have to buy like 10 tokens?
Zoe Mock 2:30
No, no, you pay and then it’s like a whole experience that you bought.
Don Mock 2:35
It’s like the cart at Aldi’s except this is ice cream. Well, Here’s what’s interesting. I mentioned Hey, What do you love about IKEA? And the first thing you mentioned, I think is probably the thing that people like the least about IKEA. I don’t know What that says about you. But I think that’s interesting.
Zoe Mock 2:49
I’ve always been an odd one
Don Mock 2:50
Yeah, I’m not gonna say anything. But yeah, the there is definitely something I mean, they’ve you know, it’s, it’s well designed, it’s well thought out, you do have the cut throughs you know, and our local IKEA as I’m sure they are, you know, similar in other parts of the world or whatever. They’re the shortcuts, but then there’s also the cut down where you don’t have to go through the big maze, you can go straight down to the marketplace, or if you need to get the, you know, I need to get to J 28.
Zoe Mock 3:17
Yeah, in the warehouse
Don Mock 3:19
Heimdall table, or whatever bathroom vanity like that, you know, there’s ways to work the system, if that makes sense, you know, yeah.
Zoe Mock 3:28
But I love the experience. I’m not even talking about how much I love the furniture and the pieces that they create and the designers that they collaborate with. I think it’s fantastic. The experience.
Don Mock 3:39
Okay, well, let’s talk about that for a second. You know, because I’ve done a few little corporate, not corporate, but like little talking engagements in the past and things like that about trying to explain What is the brand, right talk about What is a brand and how it’s more than just a logo and like part of Chick Fil A’s brand is that they never say thank you, they say my pleasure you know like, Starbucks has a very specific brand that is you know, and so it is the sum of all touchpoints right, that is internalized that you know is a feeling it’s more than just oh, is the logo green or is it orange So you picked up on that?
Zoe Mock 4:14
What’s the entire identity? if you want to call it that
Don Mock 4:16
Yeah, for sure. But you know the experience you know, you love IKEA yet we haven’t even talked about any of the actual design or anything. You’re talking really more about the experience of IKEA right?
Zoe Mock 4:28
I interact with the experience right now more than I interact with the process of buying the furniture and building it. Although if anyone wants me to build their Ikea furniture, Sign me up.
Don Mock 4:35
Do you like it? Really?
Zoe Mock 4:37
Yeah, one of my projects was we had to make our art pieces be put together IKEA style and you’ll get an Ikea manual with it. Using all the CAD drawings that we produced, I love that whole process and the putting together that I think the people think
Don Mock 4:51
again, I’m going to point out that that’s probably the second level of hell for people in regards to like, oh, I have a little miniature allen wrench. If I had to spend the next five hours
Zoe Mock 5:02
Oh god you hate the Allen wrenches
Don Mock 5:03
Well, I hate like the tools are too small is what it is
Zoe Mock 5:09
Yes they’re not ergonomic at all. But they’re not meant to be.
Don Mock 5:11
It’s okay. Like, well, yeah, it’s a disposable thing that comes with, you know, it’s just meant to basically build this shelf and then never move. Right. So, I mean, I get it, I understand why it is the way it is. I just feel like oh my god, I have like, 483 of these things.
Zoe Mock 5:26
I do have an entire Ziploc bag of Allen wrenches.
Don Mock 5:29
Oh, yeah, I keep them all too why? why do we keep them all I don’t know
Zoe Mock 5:33
One of your pieces might come without an Allen wrench.
Don Mock 5:35
This is true I got like 20 of them now. I think we, you you stuffed to the level of capacity. So because I’ve got the room in the drawer downstairs in the garage for the tools. I just keep putting them in there. So yeah, I mean, the first level of hell is normally the the maze. The second is the building. But those are the two things that you seem to love the most, which is understanding. So What else about it
Zoe Mock 6:01
But it’s my playground. It’s everything that I love
Don Mock 6:05
it is a source of inspiration?
Zoe Mock 6:06
We do actually do IKEA field trips. Like my cohort and I we’re all gonna go sit in their chairs and be judgy
Don Mock 6:13
That’s cool. What about IKEA hacks?
Zoe Mock 6:16
What do you mean?
Don Mock 6:16
Have you ever looked up the IKEA hacks online? How it’s like, oh, I built this furniture, but I’m not using it the way that it was intended. I’ve taken this bookshelf and I’ve turned it on its side and now it’s a bench with storage, you know, things like that.
Zoe Mock 6:29
Right? Well, I don’t have the furniture right now to do that. I’m not buying furniture right now.
Don Mock 6:34
No Understood. Understood. What I’m curious about your take on that. It’s like a second utilization of the brand
Zoe Mock 6:39
There’s a term for it that Lego uses when it’s using the piece for something other than its intended purpose, but it’s still successful. The bonsai tree Lego set uses pink frogs instead of like for the cherry blossoms or whatever the flower is. So you cover your bonsai tree Lego set in pink frogs. And it gives the effect that you want. So I think that’s great.
Don Mock 7:06
It’s repurposing, it’s repurposing.
Zoe Mock 7:09
I think that’s why the brand is successful. And the entire identity is it can be multifaceted and kind of shift around
Don Mock 7:16
Well, I think it’s an interesting dilemma to jump in here for a minute here. I think it’s interesting that I think maybe the brand as as great brands often do evolve, right? As the general populace evolves, and as your your organization and grows in terms of how old it is, and that constantly. So it’s, it’s obviously about innovation. I mean, almost every single organization would say it’s about innovation, right? Whether you make cars or furniture or software or or, or even don’t even make anything, you just provide a service. You know, it’s all about What have you done for me lately? And the innovation things there? Right. So I think, I think about their brand from a historical perspective of, oh, it’s cheap, Swedish, crappy furniture. Right? Like, like it was, it was leading with the Inexpensive aspect, it does the job. And it’s very inexpensive. Because furniture can be unbelievably expensive. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, a big, wooden, you know, dining room table or What? Yeah, I mean, those things can get up there. Yeah, so it was okay. Well, yeah, it’s not rooms to go in terms of trying to be that buy the room. And, you know, it’s an inexpensive, you know, Starter Set, whatever. It was a different like, particle board furniture, What the hell, you know, kind of like that lower end tear, right? And What I think I really enjoy about the brand and What I love about their brand is that yes, they still have the inexpensive quality to it. Right. And they are known for, for that, but coupled with, you know, stellar design, right. And part of the design is the problem solving of shipping. So as I’ve become more sophisticated, as I’ve gotten older, with my purchasing needs, and things along those lines, right, I’ve come to admire, like, you know, What you’re saying about the green frogs, right? The multiplicity or, dare I say, duplicity of how one sort of core set of design parameters can then become all of these different things in a modular aspect of it, right. And we’ve utilized IKEA for wardrobes and shelving and floating shelves and a lot of accent pieces and little you know, and then kind of grew you know, always with more of the excuse me, like the the bookshelf kind of type of IKEA, right? Yeah. And then kind of grew into the furniture and it was like, Oh,
Zoe Mock 9:41
This is a nice couch
Don Mock 9:41
Hey this little couch is great for the office, you know, you kind of plus up and into other areas. And so I’ve really come to appreciate their, their design and how they, I will say this when they commit I mean they commit they’ll commit to a color or a finish or a lacquer or whatever.
Zoe Mock 10:00
This year color is Viva magenta with Pantone. There’s an entire Viva magenta corner in IKEA right now
Don Mock 10:05
Yeah exactly, I haven’t been in a while because I know, unlike you, for the most part, I kind of know What I need. And I will just go right into the, into the warehouse part. And buy that
Zoe Mock 10:18
More often than not I go through the marketplace, and then the warehouse as opposed to just as opposed to the showroom.
Don Mock 10:26
my frustration is more with the it’s like traffic. It’s like being stuck behind people that either don’t know the rules
Zoe Mock 10:34
I will never go on a Sunday afternoon. Ever. we go Tuesday mornings.
Don Mock 10:39
Yeah, there you go. That’s the perfect time.
It’s like going to the bank.
Zoe Mock 10:41
There’s no like Saturday. Oh, let’s take a gander around IKEA. Absolutely not
Don Mock 10:45
Yeah don’t go to the bank on payday Friday, if you only have one transaction to make
Zoe Mock 10:50
Exactly, so I mean there are rules. But I also understand that it’s out of the norm that we have an IKEA a quarter mile away and people travel from other states.
Don Mock 11:01
Oh yeah, Every time you go to IKEA, there’s the like, the U haul trucks or whatever, where it’s like, oh, I’m buying the entire kitchen or whatever. All the cabinets, all the stuff
Zoe Mock 11:09
And we live in North Carolina or whatever.
Don Mock 11:11
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. You know, so yeah, they, you know, they’re in most, I mean, I don’t want to say most, but they’ve got the coasts I think pretty well covered in regard to like Florida. I mean, we’re not on the coast here. But like, you know, the Northeast, the West Coast and stuff. So yeah, I mean, I really love I love the the design methodology that goes into it. And then as I’ve built more IKEA furniture over the years and just experienced more of their products, I think that yes, the while they started as a like, oh, it’s cheap, flimsy particle board, like build it where it needs to live and that don’t ever move it. Because the minute you pick it up and try to put it somewhere else, it’ll fall apart like a house of cards. I think they’ve they’ve maybe shed that a little bit for a lot of people.
Zoe Mock 11:54
Yeah, I think it’s hard. But on the topic of they’re like we’re committing to this bit. Any cause that they commit to, I feel like they go very full throttle into theirs. We’re not dilly dallying around here. They committed to carbon neutrality in some form or another. And they’ve held that, I’m trying to think all of their air purifiers right now and all the design that they did with that were pretty revolutionary. Like they make tables that have purifiers under them.
Interesting. Okay, is this in response to the global plague
Well it came out of the global plague
Don Mock 12:31
Ok, Is there anything you don’t like about IKEA? Well, I’ll throw one out while you’re thinking thinking while you’re pontificating. I love going there for the frames, right? And I’m like, oh, frames, because frames are expensive, you know,
Zoe Mock 12:49
Oh, you buy a lot of IKEA frames, actually.
Don Mock 12:51
And I cannot stand that none of the frames are really Western sizes. You know, we are 18×24. It’s all these funky wacky metrics.
Zoe Mock 13:01
Why is it 10 x 14
Don Mock 13:02
I know but aren’t like aren’t five by seven portrait like little pronounces or pictures and eight by 10s Isn’t that kind of standard? I don’t know like so there’s always that weird like, oh, something’s just a little bit off and I love the lighting. I love going through the lighting and seeing the you know, the sconces, actually our entire office is actually all IKEA, when we built out our space all of those hanging lights you can see here are all IKEA we painted them all because they came in black. You know, but but the lighting the same thing. It’s like just a little bit off. It’s like, wow, this bulb was a little different. Like the sizing
Zoe Mock 13:32
It’s great but if you bought the IKEA lamp you gotta buy the IKEA bulbs
Don Mock 13:35
so you know, it’s kind of brilliant in an Apple kind of way. And once you’re in the ecosystem, you’re kind of trapped in the ecosystem, you know, but sometimes you’ve just got an 11 x 17 magical piece of comic book art, you need to frame there’s no good frames that have a proper mat all the way around.
Zoe Mock 13:55
Those silver frames in your office are screaming
Don Mock 13:57
I bought like, well, I bought like, you know, 30 of those because I was like there you know, it is a little bit of the Hong Kong rule of travel too to where it’s like, you gotta buy it all, like buy it all while you see it because if you go back six months later
Zoe Mock 14:09
They won’t have it in stock anymore. We have to furnish the whole office
Don Mock 14:13
Exactly. I mean, that’s a minor thing. I understand. It’s a metric. It’s European. They’re global. I mean I get it. Alright what about you?
Zoe Mock 14:23
The checkout experience. It lacks.
Don Mock 14:27
Yeah I agree with that.
Zoe Mock 14:27
It’s like ok I’m holding one plant and like, some towels for the apartment for whatever. Why am I competing with a guy who has his entire kitchen for the self checkout?
Don Mock 14:38
Well, do they not have the
Zoe Mock 14:39
They have like they had like, quote unquote, 10 item or less. It’s not enforced. And then I think post COVID the lane. They don’t have people working the lane anymore
Don Mock 14:47
There’s a lot less people working on that. Yeah, it’s a lot more self checkout, which is a bad idea. In general.
Zoe Mock 14:52
We’re in a weird position. I think were it’s not automated enough. But we’re relying On the automation, if that makes sense. So the infrastructure hasn’t been built out yet. But we’re relying on What we have already. Yeah. And the people that would have been working in the checkout lanes are now working the self checkout monitoring. But if it was automated enough to have it self regulated kind of Amazon style.
I feel that way. A little bit about target too. It’s like you got all these checkouts you got all these things, but everybody’s clumped over in one corner, but nobody really knows What they’re doing. I mean, yeah, we’re in a kind of a transition
Don Mock 15:16
Yeah, I scanned something wrong and it took me five minutes to wait for somebody to come just beep bop beep bop.
Yeah, that’s super annoying.
Zoe Mock 15:31
Yeah. So So I I love I love the whole experience. It’s worth it. It is not worth it Sunday at four o’clock. Obviously. Avoiding the quote unquote problematic times.
Don Mock 15:45
Now shifting gears really quick. And then we can wrap this up. Because you’re talking about the brand as an experience holistically, which I love. What about the actual design of the blue and yellow and the logo and the type and everything?
Zoe Mock 15:45
Are we talking about the products?
Don Mock 15:56
No, no, no, no, none of the products. Okay, just the logo of IKEA.
Zoe Mock 16:06
I love it.
Don Mock 16:07
You love it. The big yellow type on a blue building.
Zoe Mock 16:09
Yes, If I could buy a blue IKEA hat. Like a blue like IKEA blue with the yellow IKEA type. 100%. I would wear it all day.
Don Mock 16:17
Okay. All right. Well, you got a birthday coming up. Maybe we’ll get you an IKEA hat. Well, I thought, you know, I thought it was smart that it’s, Hey, it’s the colors of Sweden. I mean, it’s the flag color. So I always thought that was great. And they, you know, they put a little flag over here. You know, it’s it’s, it’s subtle. You know What I mean?
Zoe Mock 16:35
It’s elegant. It’s not in your face America.
Don Mock 16:38
Yeah, I think it’s kind of Swedish enough from the naming of all of the products but I would almost clue that into making negative or positive right. Like, like the old joke about Volvo boxy but safe. And it’s like, okay, that’s like, Yeah, we don’t have the, you know, this was back in the 80s. We don’t have the design shops that Mercedes has, but yeah, hey, we kick everybody’s ass in safety rating and things like that. Right. So I think it’s, it’s, they don’t really lean into it a ton, I don’t think but just the fact that all the products are named so funny and wacky and weird.
Zoe Mock 17:09
Well it’s only funny, wacky and weird to us.
Don Mock 17:11
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That I feel like that is kind of Swedish enough. Where they don’t emblazon the Swedish flags on everything. You know, and some of the stuff I mean, I’m making I’m saying there’s a lot of Mallmann because a lot of stuff that’s totally normally, you know, pronounced I guess, agnostic of What country you may be buying IKEA products and you know, but yeah, I mean, I like the I like to type I think the big thick chunky letters really works for a big box retailer. You know, imagine if it was a you know, annoying thin or light type face. It wouldn’t work.
Zoe Mock 17:46
Yeah, absolutely not
Don Mock 17:47
It doesn’t make sense at all. So yeah, it needs to be kind of big and thick and chunky. Alright, cool. Well, hey, IKEA, go give it a whirl.
Zoe Mock 17:56
I love IKEA, if they ever want to hire me for literally anything in history. That’s the dream job.
Don Mock 18:02
Is it really? Would you move to Sweden?
Zoe Mock 18:04
Yes.
Don Mock 18:04
Really? do they is is everybody like from a design perspective? And I’m putting you on the spot.
Zoe Mock 18:11
I’m gonna say I don’t know.
Don Mock 18:12
Yeah. Is everyone in Sweden? I was wondering if they have regional offices.
Zoe Mock 18:16
No idea. I would commit to Sweden though for IKEA. I mean we’re supposed to call them aka.
Don Mock 18:23
Really? Okay. Well, not here it’s not.
Zoe Mock 18:27
Sorry, IKEA.
Don Mock 18:28
Yeah, yeah, funny. Alright. Well, hey, where can everybody find us Zoe?
Zoe Mock 18:31
You can find us on the interwebs www.mocktheagency.com and all the socials @mocktheagency
Don Mock 18:36
Where can they find you? If anybody’s interested in giving you an IKEA job.
Zoe Mock 18:39
www.zoelmock.com for everything. LinkedIn, blue sky now. Shout out blue sky.
Don Mock 18:48
Shout out Blue Sky
Zoe Mock 18:50
all that good stuff.
Don Mock 18:51
All right, everybody. Well, thanks and we’ll chat with you next time.
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