IKEA Canada is using out-of-home (OOH) media as a key canvas for its new campaign, positioning pantry organization as a visible, public-facing expression of order and calm in everyday life.

Created by ad agency Rethink, the “Unpackaged Goods” campaign places decanted pantry staples and minimalist storage visuals in high-traffic urban environments across Toronto, Ont., and Montreal, Que. In Toronto, the work appears at two high-traffic spots downtown—Sankofa Square and the Church St. and Bloor St. corridor—along with transit shelters throughout the city. In Montreal, placements include the Place des Arts metro station and the surrounding transit infrastructure.

The executions depict familiar packaged goods—cereal, confectionery, coffee, and snacks—transformed into uniform, decanted displays using IKEA storage systems.

The stage, the subject

The OOH concept extends into typographic play, reworking familiar brand taglines into the campaign’s organizing theme — turning Skittles’ “Taste the rainbow” into “Organize the rainbow,” and Maxwell House’s “Good to the last drop” into “Organized to the last drop.” This means the campaign uses existing brand strength to make the visuals more effective. The campaign also runs across TikTok, Pinterest, and Meta.

“With many Canadians currently tackling their spring cleaning to-dos, the idea of adding pantry organization to the list may seem daunting, but it doesn’t need to be,” says Jonelle Rickets, head of marketing at IKEA Canada. “Thanks to IKEA’s wide range of affordable, functional, and well-designed storage solutions, it’s easy to take control of the cluttered corners of your home and turn organization into a small but meaningful act of everyday joy.”

The campaign reflects a broader trend in OOH where retail brands are using physical media to demonstrate and narrate ideas, rather than simply advertise them—treating city infrastructure as both stage and subject.