IKEA International, Stop Being So English
A young British couple sit in their casual, Ikea furnished bedroom and explain how they've changed recently.
"Our place had a mock Edwardian feeling," begins the wife.
The husband continues, "It was cheap reproduction furniture. We fancied ourselves as Lord and Lady Muck." They're shown playing croquet on a tiny lawn. "We thought we were better than the other families on the estate."
She tearfully cleans the word "snobs" off their dwelling. "They thought we were very uptight and snotty. We're much happier now," she says as she laughs. They then are shown playing a limbo game with few clothes on.
Into the room barges a charactered Swedish narrator, with fake blond hair and a silly accent, who says, "This is typical. Mary and Tom are English, like you. They long to be in your upper classes, which is sad and ridiculous. You too can overcome this pretension by being more relaxed and less formal with your furniture. In turn, you'll be more relaxed and less formal with those around you and make some friends and..." he licks the ear of the husband, who acts perfectly natural, "and come to Ikea. Become not so stiff."
This ad is so cartoonish, few would take it seriously. But it makes the unusual -- a man licking another in front of his wife -- seem not so bad.
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