Create an event for IKEA and UNHCR

Ingka Group | IKEA and UNHCR have a long-standing collaboration to highlight the positive role that refugees can play in businesses and local communities.

We were asked to help plan and deliver a global event for business leaders, EU policymakers and civil society that would raise awareness, change perceptions and inspire action.

As a business, Ingka Group | IKEA advocates for the inclusion of refugees and encourages others to do the same. Ingka Group | IKEA’s ‘We are better together’ framework celebrates their belief that welcoming and integrating refugees benefits both business and society.

Ingka Group | IKEA and UNHCR committed to co-host a one-day ‘We’re Better Together’ event in Brussels that would be hosted by Jesper Brodin (CEO of Ingka Group | IKEA and Filippo Grandi (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).

The key audience they had already identified were:

• EU policymakers - to address existing labour market barriers
• Global business leaders - to recognise and share the business benefits of hiring refugees
• Refugees - to tell their story and show what changes they need to happen
• Civil society leaders - to share best practice
• Ingka Group | IKEA CEOs and country leaders - to commit to hiring more refugees

With tight timescales, Ingka Group | IKEA identified a need for external support to deliver communications, branding and creative direction and implementation for a high-quality event and accompanying exhibition.

We worked closely with INGKA Group | IKEA Retail team and UNHCR. Working in tandem with our creative communications agency partners indiepics, who led the creative direction and execution, we developed everything that we needed to ensure We’re Better Together was a success, including:

• The messaging framework and copy guidelines
• Branding and visual identity - from key visuals to signage
• Copywriting for invitations and other assets
• Audiovisual content - audio, video and stills
• Exhibition space including interviews with eight refugees, presented within a narrative framework that helped them tell their own story by using Ingka Group | IKEA props
• Session briefs - setting out the flow and key messages for each session
• Speaker briefs - setting out their contribution to each session
• Support for the comms strategy (from internal comms to writing the website)

We introduced Ingka Group | IKEA to specialist Brussels event production partners who ran the event flawlessly on the day.

And we followed up by producing a ‘how to’ guide so Ingka Group | IKEA’s in-country teams could quickly replicate a similar event themselves.

• 200 policymakers, business leaders, civil society and refugee representatives attended on the day
• High profile speakers included:
  • Jesper Brodin, CEO, Ingka Group | Ingka Group | IKEA Retail
  • Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
  • Magnus Bruner, European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration
  • Mario Nava, Director-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
  • Ola Rosling, President & Co-Founder of Gapminder Foundation
• Participants scored the event 4.6/5 for satisfaction, and 4.8/5 for ‘how valuable did you find it’
• 75% of Ingka Group | IKEA participants said they were ‘extremely inspired’ to take further action related to refugee innovation after the event. (The remaining 25% were ‘inspired’)
• As part of a multistakeholder action plan, the forum identified three top priorities to improve refugee integration:
  • To help refugees learn languages faster
  • Reduce bureaucracy
  • Develop entrepreneur funding packages for refugees 
• It also put forward 14 SMART action points to boost policy and practice
• And Ingka Group | IKEA reconfirmed their commitment to support more refugees on top of the 3000 it has already supported back into the workforce since 2019
• A website hosting the refugee stories We’re Better Together ensured the message from the day reached as wide an audience as possible