Is this any way to sell flat-pack furniture? St. Luke's, Ikea's UK ad agency for the past six years, says yes, because going against the grain is what Ikea is all about. "Ikea is anti-conventional," explains Allan Young, the agency's creative director. "It does what it shouldn't do. That's the overall theme for all the Ikea ads: liberation from tradition."

In North America, Ikea recently switched its $40 million to $50 million account to Minneapolis ad agency Carmichael Lynch, a unit of Interpublic Group. The move ended an 11-year relationship with New York agency Deutsch, which has agreed to be acquired by Interpublic. Ikea operates 15 stores in the US and seven in Canada. A company spokeswoman says Ikea hopes to open as many as eight additional stores by 2004 in North America.

In Britain, St. Luke's first ran a complacency-challenging Ikea campaign with a tagline imploring Britons to "chuck out the chintz" and rid their homes of fussy, old-fashioned furniture. The next round of ads told the English to "stop being so English" and suggested they loosen up in their lives and homes by buying Ikea furniture. "We couldn't change the furniture, so we had to change British taste," says Mr Young.

It was a bold pitch, and a radical departure from previous ads - used since Ikea opened in Britain in 1987 - that stressed value and Ikea's sturdy Swedish design. At the time, the British regarded Ikea's minimalism as cold, unwelcoming and just too bleakly Scandinavian. But they were eventually won over, and Ikea's UK business boomed. The company plans to open 20 new stores here over the next decade, up from the current 10.

But not everyone is won over. Some argue that Britons who shop at Ikea now spend their weekends standing in line at crowded stores, lugging heavy boxes - and, perhaps, contemplating divorce after arguing over how to assemble supposedly easy-to-assemble pieces.

To address these complaints, the latest ads from St. Luke's explain that what seems worst about Ikea is actually the best part. Carting around boxes yourself, for example, means reasonable prices. That is where the armpit comes in - along with a burly Ikea character called Tattoo Man, who has lots of tattoos and guides viewers through the ads. "He's kind of a mystic thug," Mr Young says.

In one spot, Tattoo Man addresses Ikea employees who are bewildered because customers are complaining about assembling their own furniture. The staff asks why the company doesn't end the hassle and just sell ready-made furniture. Tattoo Man instructs the employees to smell his armpits and one another's. What do they smell? "Honesty, integrity," says Tattoo Man. "When we sweat here, it's in honest exchange for labour. When a customer sweats at home, it's in exchange for savings."

Tattoo Man bares all in another episode. After co-workers complain that the store is too crowded, Tattoo Man uses his tattoos to tell a story. A lone-wolf tattoo symbolises customers able to get around on their own with confidence. He drops his trousers to reveal a bat tattoo on his thigh, representing the idea that customers can find their way around in the dark if there's proper store signage. On his back is a tattoo of a scale, a symbol of the "balance of quality and price" found at Ikea.

It is all somewhat unconventional, but the ad executives at St. Luke's say that is the way to convince customers that the Ikea concept and philosophy work - despite some apparent drawbacks. All the ads end with a moment of enlightenment: Tattoo Man takes the staff to a window to gaze at shoppers and wholesome families loading their furniture, while New Age music plays. "This is the way of Ikea," says the tagline, "the way it has always been."