When IKEA canceled its print catalog last year, it hinted at plans to venture into new formats to better reach an increasingly internet-dependent customer base. The world’s largest furniture company bolstered its e-commerce platform, built a better mobile app, and opened a string of small retail outlets in urban areas around the world. In what may be its zaniest gambit yet, IKEA has launched an audiobook.
Published on Spotify, Audible, and YouTube, the IKEA Audio Catalog is essentially a quippy version of its 288-page product book for the US market. Narrator Jasmin Richardson improves on humdrum product descriptions by ad libbing jokes and inserting wry observations throughout the almost four-hour audio track. For a section on home organization for instance, she riffs: