Sustainable Consumption, Anti-Consumerism Trends and Ikea Buy Back Friday Movement

Abstract

Anti-consumerism movements have gained momentum with the spread of digital communication and have become popular with the influence of both international authorities, state governments, and communities. These trends can also inspire brands to create communication strategies that can achieve their sustainable consumption goals. Based on this, the paper adresses the marketing and communication mission for community engagement under the title of sustainable production and consumption goal through searching secondary resources and observing by grounding the IKEA Buy Back Friday movement on Sarkar and Kotler's Brand Activism phases. The most vital insight of the study is that consumer trends inspire IKEA, to create both an awareness and a stimulating effect on the sustainable consumption-based lifestyle in its target audiences with its Buy Back Friday campaign. According to findings, IKEA applied regressive brand position by confesting Black Friday and call its target audiences for buy for our planet. Thereforei the brand has appelled its audiences attention to excessive consumption and made them rethink about a sustainable tomorrow. By 47.000 repaired and resaled furniture pieces, it is seen that Buy Back Friday initiative also triggered consumers to act for sustainable consumption during the initative period.The paper aims to contribute to the field by providing a different perspective on the field of brand activism.