Going viral is not only something you engineer. Ride a public event that happens to involve your brand—quickly and sincerely—and that alone can push a product you already sell into the spotlight. In 2026, IKEA showed it with a single stuffed toy.
It started at a zoo in Japan. A baby monkey named “Punch,” abandoned by his mother, clung desperately to an IKEA orangutan plush (the roughly $20 staple “Djungelskog”) given to him as a comfort object—and the video was viewed tens of millions of times, sending #HangInTherePunch around the world. IKEA did not make a new product. Instead, it placed this already-on-sale staple plush at the center of an official global ad as “the product that became Punch’s emotional support,” and its CEO even visited the zoo to donate one. As a result, the plush sold out worldwide, with resale prices spiking to $350.
Why it worked
The public had already emotionally invested in this story. Into it, the company participated sincerely—not with the lightness of jumping on a bandwagon, but with a real action: a donation. Precisely because it was a genuine event rather than a manufactured ad, it led straight to a sellout with zero pushiness. The point is that IKEA did not rush to make a new product. Swapping only the “meaning” of an existing product to make it the star is what let it be both fast and sincere.
How a small business can use this
There will always be a moment when your product or service gets tangled up in a public topic in an unexpected way. A post that happens to spread on social media, an incident that becomes the talk of the neighborhood, word of mouth from a regular—when you detect it, before launching a new project, swap the “meaning” of an existing product or your recruiting page to make it the star. And do not stop at riding the wave; show sincerity with real action—a donation, a supply, a visit. What matters is speed and genuineness. The heat cools the moment it feels manufactured, but with real action behind it, a coincidence becomes the finest advertising.
“Which coincidence could we ride?”—ASTER keeps a stock of reusable structures drawn from hundreds of cases, and translates them into your products and hiring challenges to turn them into concrete plans. Feel free to get in touch.
