Escape Roomcase study

Who lives here?

On Halloween night, IKEA opens its doors after dark and turns two showroom apartments into a living mystery. Every drawer, shelf, and detail is a clue.

Can you figure out who lives here and what they're hiding?
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Concept, Design & Copy: Rubiat Fusigboye

Client: IKEA spec

Timeline: Feb 2026 (2 weeks) - The Residence

Problem

People already treat IKEA showrooms like fictional worlds, imagining the lives of the people who "live" there but IKEA is leaving all of that organic engagement on the table.

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Context

KEA showrooms already blur the line between store and someone's actual home, stocked fridges, fake food, toothbrushes by the sink. Meanwhile murder mystery culture is everywhere, from true crime podcasts to dinner party mystery kits. The audience is primed to play detective. IKEA just needs to give them the crime scene.
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Idea

On Halloween night, IKEA opens its doors after dark for an exclusive escape room experience built entirely out of its own showroom sets. You can't buy a ticket, you earn your way in by finding and solving cryptic clues hidden in stores in the weeks leading up.

Made for Now
(and Next)

One IKEA piece. Your Unique way to use it.The same IKEA pieces you know, shown in all the ways you haven't imagined yet. Whatever life throws at you, they already fit, you just have to see it.

Art Director: Rubiat Fusigboye
Client: Ikea Spec
Timeline: Feb 2025

Problem
One IKEA piece. Your Unique way to use it.The same IKEA pieces you know, shown in all the ways you haven't imagined yet. Whatever life throws at you, they already fit, you just have to see it.

Context
People's lives aren't linear. Home has to absorb constant change, new routines, new people, new pressures, often without budget or energy for a full reset. When life shifts, people don't replace everything. They reconfigure what they have and find real satisfaction in making things work cleverly and personally.

Idea
Made for Now (and Next) keeps IKEA's iconic Swedish names but adds a twist, pairing each product with the many ways people actually use them. Stop searching for the perfect niche item. A combination of IKEA pieces rearranged, re-zoned, or reinterpreted sparks curiosity to check IKEA first and imagine what's possible. Your home, as unique as you are.

The Story

The escape room is set across two neighbouring apartments. A friends heirloom has gone missing from shared apartment and the clues point next door.

Players move between both sets, rifling through the details of two different lives to figure out what was taken, who took it, and where they hid it.

The tone stays playful and Cluedo-like no gore, no one goes missing, just nosy friends and a mystery worth solving. It's the kind of thing that if it happened in real life you'd be gossiping about it over coffee, not calling the police.

The Experience

Groups of five explore two fully staged apartments, working backwards from the details, opening drawers, reading notes, checking shelves, to piece together who lives there and what happened. Every object is a potential clue. Players' phones integrate with a live group chat and the IKEA Home app, pushing messages and audio that react to their progress in real time.

Smart Home Integration

IKEA's smart home range is a key growth area, but the products are hard to sell in a traditional retail setting, people need to experience them, not just see them on a shelf.

The escape room solves this by making the technology part of the puzzle. Door sensors feed timestamps to the app, smart blinds reveal hidden clues, and smart lights must be set to the right scene to uncover UV-lit fingerprints. Players aren't watching a demo, they're relying on these products to solve the mystery.

Campaign Connection

Halloween Essentials

The activation lives under IKEA's existing "Halloween Essentials" campaign, which previously positioned everyday products as things to hide behind during horror movies.

This year, the essentials shift to fit the mystery, a step stool to reach a hidden clue, a magnifying mirror to catch missed details, an alarm clock counting down your remaining minutes. Each is a real, shoppable IKEA product reframed as your detective toolkit for the night.

Cross Platform
Lead Up

In the weeks before Halloween, cryptic clues appear across IKEA stores disguised as normal staging, a strange headline, a note tucked in a drawer, a scratched-out photo.

Shoppers who spot them are led to an Instagram story where solving the puzzle earns entry for five. IKEA's social channels drip-feed hints and engage those getting close, building a community of amateur detectives before the event even begins.

My Use of AI

Photos for this concept were a combination of real-life photos I took at IKEA Toronto, images sourced from IKEA's website, and AI-enhanced visuals. I used Adobe Firefly, Midjourney, and Google Gemini to refine and adapt these images to better align with my concept.

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