IKEA Made Long, Mundane Video Ads That People Are Actually Watching

Leave it to IKEA to create an ad that people will watch, even if it’s intentionally long and boring. The Swedish retailer’s latest YouTube preroll ads (the commercials before a video that you can skip after five seconds) are really mundane and yet, weirdly mesmerizing.

Created by agency Åkestam Holst, the ads ran in Sweden as part of the company’s “where life happens” campaign, and feature people doing everyday things: a teenager washing dishes, a couple making out on a couch, a bunch of friends arm wrestling. The actors break the fourth wall and keep telling you to skip, and yet, you want to keep watching to find out what happens (spoiler, nothing really ever happens—that’s the point).

The ads range from four and a half minutes to almost nine minutes, and shockingly, people are sticking with them. Adweek has the stats:

According to agency Åkestam Holst, the average viewing rate among targeted users was three minutes—far and above what most brands can hope for in their breathier efforts to pack worthy content into the tense five seconds allotted them before the Click of Death. A whopping 39 percent watched an ad in its entirety.

In August, the brand released an ASMR video (ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, otherwise known as a tingling, calming sensation brought on by hearing certain sounds) that came in at a whopping 25 minutes. Other ads have highlighted the company’s sense of humor, like its response to Balenciaga’s FRAKTA bag “knockoff.”

If you’re tempted to watch them for yourself, head on over to Adweek.