IKEA has issued a formal apology after receiving criticism for an alternate catalogue distributed among the ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jewish community in Israel. The big fuss was caused from a complete lack of women and girls in any of the catalogues’ pages.
The Swedish furniture and houseware giant quickly responded with an apology for the catalogue, in what they claimed was a marketing mistake on the part of the local Israeli IKEA office. Clearly not representative of wider company values, right? Not necessarily.
As one Swedish Middle East correspondent highlighted, IKEA unfortunately has a track record of erasing any feminine trace from their pages to please conservative populations.
In 2012 #IKEA apologized for removing women from Saudi catalogue. "Goes against our values". Now new women-free haredi-version of catalogue pic.twitter.com/6ba6LjEPjy
— cecilia udden (@ceciliauddenm) February 16, 2017
Others opined about the matter from a different angle. One facebook user complained about the unrealistic nature of the catalogue images depicting ultra-Orthodox men raising all male children.
Another user tweeted with dismay:
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. https://t.co/J1miugS2At
— Yael Simon (@YaelSSimon1) February 16, 2017
Some people, however, took a lighter approach, praising the images of ‘men in the kitchen’ tongue-in-cheek.
Whether or not IKEA will make similar marketing miscalculations in the future is unclear. However, they have surely learned that the internet never forgets, and social media users notice when companies have not learned their lesson from faux-pas past.
LM
