IKEA, the Swedish furniture chain, has angered Italian social conservatives by promoting families in its advertising: what has angered them, is IKEA’s insistence that they are open to all families.

I find it serious and in bad taste that a Swedish multinational comes to Italy to tell Italians what they should think,” Secretary of State for family policy Carlo Giovanardi said in a television interview. The Swedish furniture giant’s advertisement shows two men with a shopping bag, holding hands, and the words: “We are open to all families”.

-The Local

 

The reaction is so ludicrous I hardly know where to start: by pointing to Silvio Bersulsconi’s own record of exemplary family life , or by observing that the chain is not in fact telling anybody what to think: they are simply telling customers what they think: that all are welcome.

I think that many clients of Ikea will not find this pleasant,” said Giovanardi.

Now, the furniture advertising that I find unpleasant is the incessant stream of commercials that show smiling happy families trying out lounge suites, kitchen designs, or (especially) beds - with never a same - sex couple among them. Including an occasional male or female couple in an advertising campaign is not imposing a lifestyle on anyone: but restricting all representations of family to just a single type is indeed imposing one lifestyle on everybody.

IKEA, on the other hand, are doing no more than recognising commercial reality - and demonstrating, as any retailer should, that all their customers are valued.