No, That IKEA Video Probably Isn’t An Official Animal Crossing Collaboration — Here’s Why

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IKEA recently shared a fun Animal Crossing video on social media, sparking speculation by some of an official collaboration, but is there really any substance to this?

Since the video below was posted by IKEA France on TikTok, we’ve been seeing various social media posts, YouTube videos, and other articles speculating that there could be some sort official crossover coming for Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

The excitement is understandable, because frankly, this would be an awesome collaboration if it were to happen! But there are a few key reasons to be highly skeptical that this is anything more than simply a silly post from IKEA France’s social media marketing team looking to hop on a current trend with the Version 3.0 update.

Classic Sounds From Animal Crossing On GameCube & DS

Perhaps the most telling sign that this IKEA video shouldn’t be taken as a sign of an official partnership is the odd use of sound effects from the classic Animal Crossing for GameCube and Animal Crossing: Wild World for Nintendo DS games that are from over 20 years ago.

Don’t get us wrong, we love hearing these classic sounds again and they fill us with nostalgia! But if this were an official collaboration of any kind, official assets to use from the current Animal Crossing: New Horizons would surely be sent over to IKEA — not a mixture of 20+ year old sounds from the early 2000s.

If anything, the use of these particular outdated sounds strikes us as an intentional choice on the part of a marketing team hoping to draw less ire from Nintendo. They’re avoiding use of the current assets that Nintendo is likely to be more protective of.

Not to mention, Nintendo is notoriously strict about their consistent branding. Even if modern assets weren’t provided to IKEA, there’s no way the company would allow these highly outdated sounds that haven’t been used in Animal Crossing for two decades pass through their approvals for an official partnership launch or teaser. It just doesn’t pass the smell test considering Nintendo’s reputation.

For example, the official LEGO partnership was first announced using music from Animal Crossing: New Horizons, even though the collaboration is actually branded as a generic ‘Animal Crossing’ name and not directly tied to New Horizons:

It’s worth pointing out as well that the LEGO video above features a copyright disclaimer at the bottom of the screen towards the end, whereas we don’t see anything like that from IKEA.

Along the same lines, when we saw the Animal Crossing X ColourPop collaboration in 2021, every piece of media released by ColourPop to tease and promote the products also featured ‘TM & © 2021 Nintendo’ in the corner:

https://twitter.com/ColourPopCo/status/1354851978828869634

Only Shared By IKEA France On TikTok

It’s noteworthy that the only division of IKEA around the world to share this content is IKEA France. Additionally, the video appears to have only been posted on TikTok, and can’t be found on the brand’s other active pages including Instagram and Facebook.

A partnership of this nature generally tends to be a globally coordinated campaign to some degree — if there were any significant collaboration or crossover between IKEA and Animal Crossing taking place, we wouldn’t expect to see a single country’s division of IKEA going it alone.

Not IKEA’s First Time Joining Animal Crossing Trends

Building on the last point, this isn’t actually the first time we’ve seen IKEA’s marketing in a particular country jump on the trend of Animal Crossing when it’s popular. Back during Animal Crossing’s peak of popularity in 2020, the company’s Taiwanese branch released an elaborate catalog themed to Animal Crossing: New Horizons that you can view below:

In this case, IKEA Taiwan essentially took one of their existing furniture catalogs and ‘converted’ the real-life photos into in-game Animal Crossing screenshots replicating the furniture as closely as they could. It’s still impressive to this day — you can view the complete catalog here.

Of course, this was nothing more than some fun marketing to hop on the trend of Animal Crossing and we certainly never saw any official collaboration come as a result.

Similarly, we saw plenty of other brands in 2020 join the Animal Crossing bandwagon to try and promote their products without any sort of official partnership with Nintendo, including the $12 billion bank Ally Financial and even Joe Biden’s presidential campaign! It’s not unprecedented in the slightest.

All of that is to say, we think it’s very unlikely that this video from IKEA France ends up amounting to anything more than what we can already see — just a clever and timely social media post. And if there is more, it’s unlikely to extend beyond a minor local in-store promotion in France, not an update to the game.

To be honest, we find it a little disappointing how some sources online have tried to frame it as a strong signal for an expansive partnership or game update when there’s such little evidence. Anything can happen of course, but there’s very few reasons to believe that will be the case, besides pure hope! We will be happy to be proven wrong.

For more on Animal Crossing: New Horizons Version 3.0, check out our latest articles and guides below:

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