IKEA and kika start promotion battle to revive sales

The biggest foreign furniture retailers on the domestic market, IKEA and kika, are betting on a promotion strategy based on catalogues this autumn, in which they invest over 1.5m euros together.
A large part of furniture retailers have product presentation catalogues, but only IKEA and kika distribute them in large numbers in Bucharest and around it.
While IKEA has based its entire promotion on catalogues ever since it entered the domestic market, distributing almost 1 million catalogues, kika has recently launched its first catalogue, in 300,000 copies.
“The catalogue is much more complex than the usual fliers. Also, the launch of this catalogues brings a ‘fresh air’ of kika brand,” said Lars Lund, country manager of kika Romania, who specified the retailer invested 0.3m euros in the catalogue.
kika’s new promotion strategy comes as Danish-born Lars Lund has been at the helm of the company since December 2009. He announced he would not touch the “marketing budget”, but that the media mix may change, with the company focusing more on the radio and print.
IKEA also maintained it marketing budget at 1.3m euros and distributes the catalogue in 960,000 copies in Bucharest and neighbouring areas.