In a price war, you usually remove zeros. IKEA Belgium and Ogilvy SocialLab added them. Launched in Belgium in August 2026, the Emotional Pricing campaign reprices four IKEA products not in euros and cents but in the moments they make possible. The executions run across out-of-home placements in Belgium with photography by Dozen, and the pricing system is as precise as it is deliberately absurd.
The Prices
A dog lying on an IKEA rug: €0,0000024 per tail wag. A child reading in a lamp’s light: €0,000000018 per once upon a time. A couple on an IKEA couch: €0,00000000076 per butterfly. A family around an IKEA chair: €0,00000063 per jump for joy.
Each price is technically a real number. Each one describes a real thing that happens in a real home. The product is in every image. The price tag beneath it does not describe what the product costs. It describes what the product produces.
The Strategic Context
Belgium’s furniture and home retail market is one of the most competitive in Western Europe. IKEA, as the category’s dominant value player, faces continuous pressure from competitors attempting to match it on price. The conventional response to a price war is to cut prices further and communicate the reduction loudly. Emotional Pricing does neither. It enters the conversation about value from an entirely different angle: not by arguing that IKEA is cheaper, but by arguing that the right frame for measuring what IKEA costs is not money at all.
The campaign was conceptualised by creatives Karel de Mulder and Tom Galle under Executive Creative Director Jeremie Goldwasser, with account management by Stephanie Torfs and Louise Laes and production management by Ingeborg Van Hoof. The photography was shot by Dozen, each image capturing the specific emotional moment referenced in the price below it.
Why It Works
The emotional pricing format is not new as a cultural idea. The Mastercard “Priceless” platform has owned the territory of things money cannot buy since 1997. What IKEA’s execution does differently is place the un-buyable value directly beneath the product in a standard price tag format, making the juxtaposition immediate and unavoidable. You look at the ad expecting to be told what something costs. You are told instead what it is worth.
The campaign’s visual language is also its argument. IKEA products are in the frame in every execution. But the dog is not looking at the rug. The child is not looking at the lamp. The couple is not looking at the couch. They are looking at each other, at a book, at their morning. The furniture is the condition for the moment, not the subject of it. That compositional choice is the campaign’s creative precision made visible.
Campaign Name: Emotional Pricing
Agency Name: Ogilvy SocialLab, Belgium / Photography: Dozen
Brand Name: IKEA Belgium
Location: Belgium (OOH, August 2026)
