Vitsœ runs a print campaign written entirely by its own customers

A Vitsœ print ad contains no shelves. There is no studio photograph, no product cutout, no rendering of the 606 Universal Shelving System that has been the company’s foundation since 1960. Instead, readers encounter a verbatim email from a customer to a Vitsœ planner – a message about a retired carpenter father marvelling at the assembly, or a 15-year wait before a first purchase, or shelves moved through several homes as a family grew. Launched in November 2024 and ongoing, the campaign shares a new story from a Vitsœ customer – never repeated within the same publication. The decision is rooted in something Vitsœ has long understood about how the company grows. “Word of mouth and customer recommendations already do some of the most important work for us, so the campaign is simply a way of making that visible in print,” explains Priyesh Desai, Graphic Designer. The emails arrive daily into the planners’ inboxes, an abundance that has become its own challenge. With supply ongoing, the work lies in choosing carefully rather than scraping for material. Customer language is reproduced more or less untouched. Vitsœ removes personal details, fixes the occasional typo, and sends a PDF to the writer for approval before anything reaches print, but tone and content remain intact. “The slight idiosyncrasies are exactly what make each email feel human,” Desai notes. The restraint is consistent with how Vitsœ describes its shelving: a blank canvas on which to paint your colourful life. Letting customers write the ads is the same idea applied to advertising.