{"id":10,"date":"2008-03-10T09:04:28","date_gmt":"2008-03-10T09:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/2008\/03\/nominal-imperialism-at-ikea\/"},"modified":"2008-03-10T09:04:28","modified_gmt":"2008-03-10T09:04:28","slug":"nominal-imperialism-at-ikea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/nominal-imperialism-at-ikea\/","title":{"rendered":"Nominal imperialism at IKEA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently<\/a>, Swedish furniture retailer IKEA has systematically applied Danish names to doormats and carpets, while keeping Swedish names for more expensive items of furniture.\u00a0\u00a0 If this pattern of naming is systematic as claimed, then it is\u00a0hard to see how it could be accidental or inadvertant.\u00a0 If\u00a0the pattern\u00a0was<\/em> accidental, we should expect IKEA to issue a hasty apology for any unintended offence caused, to Danes or to others.\u00a0 Instead, IKEA went on the offensive, with a spokesperson allegedly saying:<\/p>\n

“these critics appear to greatly underestimate the importance of floor coverings. They are fundamental elements of furnishing. We draw worldwide attention to Danish place names with our products.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whatever the perceived justification, insulting your customers can never be great marketing.\u00a0 One of the features of colonialism is a lack of appreciation for the feelings of the colonized.\u00a0 Hundreds of years of condescension are manifest in those three sentences.\u00a0 Danes have every right to be offended.
\nUPDATE (2008-03-17):\u00a0<\/em><\/strong> Spiegel Online have now retracted their original news story (the retraction is at the same address as was the article<\/a>), although it is not clear from this retraction that either the original allegation against IKEA or the quoted response from an\u00a0IKEA spokesperson are inaccurate.\u00a0 Here is the text of the retraction of the news story by Spiegel Online:<\/p>\n

03\/06\/2008<\/p>\n

Retraction<\/h1>\n

‘Is IKEA Giving Danes the Doormat Treatment?’<\/h2>\n

Last week, SPIEGEL ONLINE published an article about IKEA products named after Danish cities. We regret that we must retract the article because of inaccurate reporting. We apologize for the error. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>In the article originally published at this address, SPIEGEL falsely reported that Danish researchers Klaus Kj\u00f8ller and Tr\u00f8ls Mylenberg had conducted a “thorough analysis” of the naming conventions at Swedish furniture maker IKEA. In fact, Kj\u00f8ller was approached by a journalist from the free daily Nyhedsavisen who had inquired about why apparently inferior IKEA products had been given the names of Danish towns.<\/div>\n

Kj\u00f8ller answered the question, but says he was very surprised by the “extremely exaggerated” article that appeared on the cover of Nyhedsavisen the following day, which would later get picked up by other media in Denmark and abroad, including SPIEGEL ONLINE.
\n“The story sounds good, but it unfortunately isn’t true,” Kj\u00f8ller told SPIEGEL ONLINE on Monday. The author of the article and the editorial staff failed to contact Kj\u00f8ller prior to the publication of the article.
\nSPIEGEL ONLINE strives to adhere to the highest standards of reporting and apologizes to its readers for the error, which we deeply regret.
\n— The Editors<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE 2 (2012-09-14):\u00a0<\/em> <\/strong>Yet, it seems, IKEA does indeed have a naming policy<\/a> in which different categories of products are given names from a particular category of real-world places and objects.\u00a0 Finnish place names are used for dining furniture, for instance.\u00a0\u00a0 In this schematic, it seems that carpets are assigned Danish place names.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is certainly not inadvertent, but deliberate.\u00a0\u00a0 Why were these products assigned those particular names?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently, Swedish furniture retailer IKEA has systematically applied Danish names to doormats and carpets, while keeping Swedish names for more expensive items of furniture.\u00a0\u00a0 If this pattern of naming is systematic as claimed, then it is\u00a0hard to see how it could be accidental or inadvertant.\u00a0 If\u00a0the pattern\u00a0was accidental, we should expect IKEA to issue a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,21,24,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-culture","category-design","category-public-relations","p1","y2008","m03","d10","h09"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}