Halloween in the MENA region has shifted. For a large part of the audience, October 31 is less about costumes and parties and more about staying home, putting on a horror film, and watching it through a gap in a duvet cover. IKEA’s Halloween Essentials campaign is built entirely around that behaviour.
The Idea
The campaign positions three IKEA soft furnishing products as the real Halloween essentials: the KLOTSTARR cushion, the SMÅNUNNEÖRT duvet cover, and the MYRULL throw. Each one is presented as the thing you reach for when a horror film gets genuinely uncomfortable. A cushion held in front of your face. A throw pulled up over your eyes. A duvet cover clutched to your chest before a jump-scare resolves.
The campaign skips every standard piece of Halloween visual language. The creative team at INGO made that decision from the start. Nicolás López and Fernando Montero, INGO’s Executive Creative Directors, put it plainly: “Can a Halloween campaign skip monsters, blood, and pumpkins? Absolutely.”
The Execution
The campaign runs across print, out-of-home, social media, and film across the MENA region, with particular focus on the UAE. Photography was handled by Ale Burset, who shot the product visuals, and direction on the film was shared between Burset and Mariano Legname Garcia. Production was handled by Timing! with music and sound by HOOKED Music GmbH.
The visual approach is clean and domestic. The products are not styled in any theatrical way. They look exactly like the items a person pulls off a sofa when a film gets too tense, which is what makes the campaign’s point without having to explain it.
The Context
Carla Klumpenaar, IKEA Al-Futtaim’s GM of Marketing, Communication and Interior Design, described the insight behind the work: “For so many of us, Halloween has become a night in, watching scary films with loved ones. What we often don’t realise is how IKEA is right there when the jump-scare strikes.”
Dan Fisher, INGO’s Global CCO, framed it from the consumer’s side: “When things get scary, we all hide behind the nearest cushion or duvet cover.”
The campaign launched on October 27, 2025, and ran through early November across the region. Media planning was handled by EssenceMediacom.
The INGO Partnership
Halloween Essentials is the latest in an ongoing run of work between IKEA Al-Futtaim and INGO. Previous campaigns from the same partnership include “Proudly Second Best,” which positioned IKEA furniture as the furniture children actually use rather than the furniture parents buy; “Guilty Pets,” which used pet-damaged IKEA products as the campaign’s visuals; and “Supporting First Steps,” built around the marks babies leave on floors and furniture. Each campaign finds an everyday domestic behaviour and builds the product connection from inside it rather than around it.
Campaign Name: Halloween Essentials
Agency Name: INGO / INGO Hamburg
Brand Name: IKEA (IKEA Al-Futtaim)
Location: MENA region (UAE focus)
