Supporting First Steps: IKEA turned real baby footage into a campaign

Every year, parents around the world film the same moment. Their baby, gripping the edge of a piece of furniture, pulling themselves up for the first time. It happens in living rooms, bedrooms and hallways, and the furniture in the frame is often the same. A stool. A side table. A low shelf. IKEA noticed something the rest of the world hadn’t. Instead of shooting a new campaign for it, the brand simply built one around what was already happening.

That campaign is Supporting First Steps, and it quietly became one of the warmest, most observational pieces of work IKEA has released in years.

The Idea Behind the Campaign

Before this campaign, IKEA had already spent decades building itself around the idea that its furniture belonged in real homes doing real jobs. However, Supporting First Steps takes that thought further than any campaign before it. Al-Futtaim IKEA, together with INGO Hamburg, realised that a specific set of IKEA products kept showing up in one of the most emotional moments in a family’s life. The moment right before a baby learns to walk.

The BEKVÄM step stool. The LACK side table. The KALLAX shelf. The MAMMUT stool. Each one is a sturdy, low-height piece of furniture, and each one is exactly the right size for a baby to grab onto and stand up. Meanwhile, parents had been unknowingly filming IKEA product placements for years, one grainy phone video at a time.

How It Actually Worked

The campaign is built from two layers of footage. First, real videos filmed by real parents of their babies pulling themselves up on IKEA furniture. Then, still photography by Ale Burset that mirrors those same moments in a more composed frame. Furthermore, the campaign framed every shot with the child as the subject and the furniture as the scaffold underneath.

That framing is the entire point. IKEA isn’t the hero of the moment. Instead, it is the thing that makes the moment possible.

The tagline is simply “Supporting First Steps,” and the products featured in each ad are the same everyday items you’d find in millions of homes. Nothing was staged specifically for the campaign. Meanwhile, the emotional weight comes entirely from recognising the familiar shape of the furniture in the corner of a memory you already have.

Where It Sits in IKEA’s Larger Story

Supporting First Steps is part of an ongoing series from INGO for IKEA, all built on the same question. What are people actually doing with IKEA products when the brand isn’t looking? Similarly, earlier chapters in the series include Proudly Second Best, Guilty Pets, and Halloween Essentials. Each one takes an existing consumer behaviour and turns it into a campaign, without inventing anything.

In fact, that discipline is what makes the campaign work. Most brand storytelling starts with what the brand wants to say. Instead, this one starts with what people are already doing.

Why It Still Works

Furthermore, the campaign carries a specific kind of humility that’s rare in furniture advertising. IKEA doesn’t ask you to notice its products. It notices you. Similarly, it doesn’t demand credit for being part of the moment. It just quietly shows up in the background of one of the most important developmental milestones a family will ever film.

Still, the strategic point lands hard. IKEA sells furniture. However, what it actually delivers is a stable, dependable, low-height corner of the world for a child to grip onto when they’re ready to try something new. That’s a much bigger promise than most furniture brands ever try to make.

That’s the reason Supporting First Steps endures. Most brands try to place themselves at the centre of every moment they buy media around, and IKEA earned its place by choosing to sit just outside the frame.

Credits

Supporting First Steps (2024) — Al-Futtaim IKEA, Middle East, by INGO Hamburg. Still photography by Ale Burset. Part of an ongoing INGO for IKEA series that also includes Proudly Second Best, Guilty Pets and Halloween Essentials.