A few select IKEA stores have started a new initiative to help homeless dogs and cats get adopted by placing life-sized cardboard cutouts of available animals in their showrooms. The idea was born in Singapore with a partnership between IKEA and and Home For Hope — a coalition of pet adoption agencies including Save Our Street Dogs and the Animal Lovers League. Customers can then scan QR codes on the cardboard cutouts to learn more about the animals up for adoption.
The idea was apparently so successful that an IKEA retail store in Tempe, Arizona has partnered with the Arizona Humane Society to start up their own pet adoption program.
“We thought it was a perfect way to show people what their home would look like with a pet in it,” Becky Blaine, Ikea Tempe’s marketing director, told Business Insider.
The program has been successful so far. Of the six cutouts that have been featured at the Tempe store, all have been adopted, Blaine said. More cutouts of adoptable pets will be featured in the store beginning July 29.
Aside from showing people what their home might look like with a pet in it, the program is revolutionary in that it reaches individuals who potentially might be interested in pet adoption, but aren’t typically connected via social media — since traditionally animals lovers who tend to also already be pet owners are the ones who subscribe to those channels.
Another huge plus is that if you’re shopping for furniture at IKEA, then odds are you’re probably not terribly concerned about your furniture possibly getting clawed, jumped on, barfed on, or diarrhea’d on, after your dog finds your stash of IKEA Swedish Meatballs — as such is the territory of pet ownership. Not sure if the same tactic would fly so much at say, Restoration Hardware.
Let’s hope this catches on, because shelters in a lot of major US cities could really benefit from this kind of program. Check out the original video from Singapore’s Home For Hope:
(Via Business Insider)