The thought occurred to me...
Imagine it was a complete accident. The font should have been ikeaSans but when files we're supplied for print they we're not packaged correctly / fonts embedded... or they we're but for some reason an amend had to be made pre press and they we're lost without being noticed.
For whatever reason the font was missing and so it fell back on the default font which happened to be Verdana... being behind schedule proofs were signed off in a rush and the font change un-noticed (I know it sounds ridiculous but maybe they'd been looking at it so much they couldn't see the wood from the trees).
After X Million we're printed it was a tough debate weather to trim them all up, mix with PVA glue and create a new furniture range, get them reprinted or think ah darn it, well we're not wasting these and forking out for them all to be printed again, well just live with it for this run....
Before you know it someone has caught wind of the change and believed it to be an intentional design change..... Bam, loads of free publicity for ikea!
Could you imagine the Marketing exec's luck after the sinking feeling he would have had burdened with the decision of to reprint or not, followed by the absolute fluke of loads of free publicity.
...just an idea.