Hot Malm sounds like it’s NSFW and plays on that category throughout the execution. In fact all the site does is show photos of MALM beds with phnar phnar titles.
Billed as a side project of Asa Block of Droga5, Hot Malm is (almost certainly) not an official IKEA USA piece of work, although it does link to the US site. It also features the IKEA Monkey, of whom nobody is apparently yet bored.
It probably won’t stay live for long so catch it now if you must.
It’s not so much the idea that grabbed me as the fact that it exists at all. While IKEA works hard behind the scenes on getting the brand across in the most market-appropriate, strategically targeted way, everyone beyond the big blue box engages with it, or not, in any way they please. Fan sites are not uncommon and it would be remiss not to acknowledge there are fierce critics too. Hot Malm is different, coming from an ad industry perspective it’s a knowing piece of fun. I’d guess there’s affection in there but it’s being used to wield a pointy stick at this most famously practical brand.
If Hot Malm is amusing it’s because, on a scale of Functionality-to-Sensuality we all know where IKEA sits. We don’t do ‘hot’ in the bedroom, or any other room come to that, but if the stats are to be believed - 1 in 10 Europeans conceived in an IKEA bed - our customers don’t need any help in that department.
