A toilet brush by any other name

It’s testament to the furniture giant’s branding success that online searches of the word ‘bolmen’ and ‘ektorp’ will return plentiful images of toilet brushes or best-selling sofas. 

Particularly for non-Swedish consumers, such words lend a personality and magic to commonplace household items; after all, why call a knob a knob when you can call it a Skärhamn – which is also beautiful coastal region and home to The Nordic Watercolour Museum. 

But, as the spokesperson in this film – created by Forsman & Bodenfors and directed by Torbjörn Martin through B-Reel Films – reveals, Bolmen is actually a large, scenic lake and Ektorp, a leafy suburb of Stockholm that's many attractions include the ABBA Museum.

In a master of understatement, she declares: “For us, who work in tourism, this is a bit problematic.” She’d like us to forget about IKEA’s nomenclature for a while and reconnect with the beauty of ‘Bolmen’ as a body of water not a budget bog brush.