BRAND PAPERS: Tour of the Vikings.(Editorial)

Elen Lewis describes how Ikea's early difficulties in persuading the Americans to love flat-pack furniture led the brand to tweak its global concept

It doesn't matter where you are in the world, the Ikea saga reads the same. Each of the yellow and blue painted Swedish furniture stores sells chairs called Barkaby, Bromma, Ektorp and Tullsta. Each takes its customer on a roundabout, winding voyage past every single product which begins with a children's ballpark and ends with a hot dog.

Internally, Ikea likes to talk of the Vikings when joking of its own flat-pack empire which stretches from Pittsburg in America to St Petersburg in Russia. There are now 179 stores in 23 countries, (202 in 32 countries; if you include franchises), with plans to open 20 new stores over the next 12 months. You can now buy a Billy bookcase and a plate of Swedish meatballs in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Iceland, Israel, Taiwan and Russia.

This is globalisation, Scandinavian-style. Anywhere in the world, there is normally only a maximum of 2% variation in the Ikea range stocked. As soon as Ikea starts changing …