Always up for an adventurous marketing gimmick, in 2008 Ikea made over a public transit train in Kobe, Japan. The Swedish furnishings retailer completed the Kobe Portliner Monorail project (which Flavorwire takes a look at today in a roundup of glamorous train-car designs) as a mobile showroom for its punchiest designs and a tool to promote its store at the nearby Port Island. With graphic EKTORP and KLOBO sofa seats, vibrant patterned curtains, and an exterior that's decked in 1970s-style flowers and hearts, the folks who took this train to work got a delightful love-era infusion for their commute.
This colorful transformation would certainly not be the last time Ikea dressed unconventional spaces (see: Paris metro station, airport lounge, room on the streets of Tokyo) or invaded a vehicle of transportation, and if the bout of crazy crap it's done lately is any indication, the ever-assiduous retailer has many more bizarre branding ploys (hotels and micro-cities, for instance) to unleash before it can achieve its long-term goal of ever-so-subtly taking over the world.
· All Ikea Coverage [Curbed National]
· 10 of the Coolest Trains in All the World [Flavorwire]