VIDEO-IKEA channels Apple in ‘bookbook’ product announcement - MarketWatch

LONDON (MarketWatch) — With less than a week to go before the latest feverishly awaited event in Cupertino, Calif., Swedish furniture giant IKEA is spoofing Apple mania.

Making clear allusions to the Silicon Valley consumer-electronics titan’s AAPL, +0.87%   new-product presentations, IKEA waxes breathless in presenting an innovation of its own: the “bookbook.”

“You know, once in awhile something comes along that changes the way we live. A device so simple and intuitive, you’ll see it feels almost familiar,” IKEA’s “chief design guru” intones in a video promoting the company’s 2015 Singapore and Malaysia catalog. Dressed in a minimalist T-shirt and speaking passionately about the new device, it’s hard not to spot a resemblance to Apple’s AAPL, +0.87%  top designer, Jonathan Ive. “It’s not a digital book, or an e-book. It’s a bookbook.”

The bookbook is encumbered with no cables, is just 8 millimeters thick, has an “eternal” battery life, and its content comes “preinstalled.”

In other words, it’s an IKEA catalog.

And the design guru calls it “amazing.”

It seems IKEA has hit the spot with the parody; more than 3 million people have already watched the video since Wednesday, when it was released on YouTube.

The last time IKEA drew so much international attention with a catalog release came in 2012, when the assemble-it-yourself juggernaut faced criticism for airbrushing out images of women in a Saudi Arabia catalog. IKEA later apologized.

More must-reads on MarketWatch:

Buying an iPhone 6? You’ll also need a new wardrobe

Why investors should ignore the iPhone 6 hype

Starbucks has a plan to win over coffee sobs, commuters