Challenge:

Drive awareness that the #1 toy brand in the world was celebrating 90 years of play.

Insight and Approach:

It may seem an easy task to celebrate such a big milestone, but in a summer where people could finally get out and away, not just stay home and play, we knew that to earn attention for The LEGO Group’s 90th anniversary we’d need to mobilise an army of supporters to join our cause: enter LEGO fans!

From celebrity LEGO lovers, including Peter Crouch to Ellie Goldstein, to those who make the magic happen within The LEGO Group, we partnered with those who live, breathe and love LEGO, telling their stories old and young

Solution:

The Building Bricks:

We kicked off our packed summer schedule with press trips to Billund (home of LEGO) for top tier media and launched influencer driven play challenges to encourage current and future fans to pick up some bricks and build.

1-90:

As we got closer to the anniversary itself (10 August) we ramped it up with our hero activation. '1-90' was a one of a kind photoshoot, we worked with photographer Rankin - a big fan himself - to capture LEGO lovers aged 1-90 from across the UK.

90 LEGO fans including customers, staff, designers, charity partners and smattering of famous faces were photographed across two days in a celebration of ageless play. A social competition to take part captured a wide range of LEGO fans with brilliant stories about how LEGO play has been a part of their life - from forging family connections to recovery from illness.

Though this begun as an earned media campaign, we quickly realised this idea was made for OOH so built a plan and assets to suit with the line up all sharing on their own channels to boost earned reach.

Leicester Square Store Reopening:

The icing on the (enormous, brick built) birthday cake, was the opening of the world’s biggest LEGO store in London, with many of our 1-90 line up joining the crowd that gathered to celebrate the milestone. However the hard work began many weeks earlier:

An attention-grabbing tease moment a few weeks prior to the launch reminded fans about the forthcoming launch event to drive excitement and thus a greater desire to visit. This involved us working with ‘construction workers’ to carry three huge, inflatable LEGO bricks through London to the store as it neared completion - because the biggest LEGO store in the world needed the biggest bricks!

A packed launch week included:

• Exclusive media previews of the store just two days before launch with Q&As featuring LEGO spokespeople. Media were able to publish their stories immediately showcasing all the appealing new features like huge 3D models and new hands-on experiences to motivate LEGO fans to want to visit straight away.
• A VIP launch event the evening before launch day swarming with celebs, influencers and their families to drive talkability and buzz across social media and on lifestyle pages.
• A launch day event that went with a bang

Results:

Across both prongs of the campaign we generated 200+ pieces of editorial coverage; +1m earned social reach; 4m DOOH impacts and multiple search spikes throughout the summer (82% increase in Google searches for LEGO Leicester Square following our tease moment; 78% increase in Google searches for LEGO Leicester Square on opening day).

The LSQ activity also delivered sustained commercial impact: The LEGO Store Leicester Square’s biggest-ever trading day was the day of the relaunch but they also saw significant uplift in both average weekly sales and individual transaction values in the nine weeks post launch.