“I’m the star of my own bad TV movie here at IKEA,” says Illeana Douglas, star of Easy to Assemble.  Season two of the web series launches next week, and a new ‘webisode’ will be made available every Wednesday.  You can watch each one here at IKEAFANS.com beginning on October 8th!

Easy To Assemble is the made-for-web IKEA-branded comedy series written and produced by Illeana Douglas and marketed by MediaEdge:cia and now CJP Digital Media.  It began as a pet project for Douglas (originally conceived as Illeanarama – Supermarket of the Stars) and a marketing experiment for IKEA which wanted to drive deeper brand engagement, especially among women. MediaEdge:cia contacted Douglas and with Douglas they rewrote the script to be set in IKEA.

The first season tells the tale of former actress Douglas’ life as she takes a job at IKEA Burbank in 10 three to eight minute episodes. After its September 2008 debut on TV.com as the first scripted original program on the CBS-owned website, it enjoyed over 1,000,000 views on various channels including YouTube, and had over 2000 blog mentions.

Unlike the makers of the viral video series IKEA Heights who received nothing from IKEA (except a crack to the knuckles for not asking permission), Illeana Douglas, the brainchild and star of Easy to Assemble inked a contract with IKEA to produce each season – the dollar amount is a pittance in Hollywood terms.  However, says Douglas, “I would rather have creative control and less money.”

Douglas has seized the opportunity for creative control, poking fun at Swedish customs, IKEA’s philosophies and pushing the limits with off-color jokes.  Did you know the Swedish word for Quilt is pronounced crap?  Though IKEA’s marketing chief Magnus Gustaffson approves the plot-lines and story ideas, IKEA is very open-minded and not afraid to “poke a little fun at ourselves,” as long as it’s kept family-friendly.

The show will not be aired on TV.com like the first season, instead it will be distributed by My Damn Channel and Hulu as well as on IKEA focused sites and blogs like PositiveFanatics.com, and TheIKEAWorld.com in addition to here on IKEAFANS.com. Makes sense, seeing as how nothing about this is mainstream.

Perhaps an early indicator of success, Easy To Assemble has spawned two spin-off series, Spärhusen and 40 and Bitter. Spärhusen, starring Keanu Reeves, features the fictional 1970’s Swedish band which provided the background music for Easy To Assemble. Earlier this year, the IKEA-inspired band performed at SXSW in Austin, Texas.  40 and Bitter is based on Justine Bateman’s fictional talk show from episodes 4 and 5 of season one.  The show will be filmed at IKEA New Haven (edited 10/1/09, SEM) IKEA Burbank with house band The Traveling Lingonberries.

What do you think of ‘branded series’?  Do you think IKEA is reaching their intended market?  We’d love to hear your views!

Tags: 40 and Bitter, Easy To Assemble, IKEA Burbank, IKEA Heights, Illeana Douglas, MediaEdge:cia, positivefanatics.com, Sparhusen, theikeaworld.com

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 4:26 PM by Susan and is filed under IKEA Advertising, IKEA Marketing, IKEA Websites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.