Is Lego the most marketable brand ever?

Lego was founded in 1932, making it 82 years old; my Granny is 82 years old (and let’s just say, comparatively, she hasn’t stood the test of time quite like Lego has). Ole Kirk Kristiansen, the inventor of Lego and a Danish carpenter, began by making wooden toys and by 1947 he had progressed to plastic. The rest, they say, is history.

Today we see Lego everywhere. Their impressive display of branded content, The Lego Movie, was arguably the most awesome piece of brand marketing the industry witnessed all year. We’ve seen London bus stops made entirely out of Lego, edible Lego that you can also build with and, of course, Nathan Sawaya’s impressive Lego sculpture exhibition in London – ‘Art of the Brick’. Lego has sailed back into the nation’s hearts not just as a re-remembered loveable toy, but as a thing of art and a symbol of creative branding and excellent marketing.

It turns out you can make pretty much anything out of Lego, something that was proven earlier this year by Graphic Design student, Ryan Howerter, who designed a pinhole camera from just one block of Lego. I got in touch with Ryan to ask why he thought Lego had stood the test of time: “I think Lego is ever-popular because the bricks made 60 years ago, still fit with today’s bricks. They don’t wear out easily!” Is durability the key to Lego’s success then? Ryan think it’s more than this, he adds “Building with Lego is a unique mix of math, creativity, engineering, and design”, and it is this that makes it so impressive. It’s hard to think of another toy that can boast such dexterity.

Image source: www.ryanhowerter.com

Outside of its physical attributes, Lego has reinvented and reimagined the brand into something far beyond the brick itself. Let’s not forget, Lego wasn’t always on the right track. In the early 2000’s the brand struggled. Lego’s Executive Vice President, Mads Nipper, admitted “with our arrogance, we though being Lego allowed us to do anything”, but in such a competitive market reputation alone cannot sustain brands.

So, what can we learn from Lego?

Focusing on making personal connections was the key to re-building Lego’s reputation says Global Director of Social Media, Lars Silberbauer. Doing so meant employing three key strategies:

Recognising social needs of the consumer

Creating value for the consumer

Engaging in real-time

Lego launched a competition which enabled the team to hear feedback from consumers and “they were shocked at how many people wanted the classic Lego back”. The simple act of listening to customer feedback ensured they were able to get on the right rebranding track.

Putting the consumer at the heart of its marketing strategy allowed Lego to reposition itself as the brand that listens, responds and ultimately cares about its fans. Personal and honest interaction has given Lego the boost it needed. That, and its top notch marketing and branding strategy.

Back in 2013, Jonathan Lee noted, “the multiple strategies employed by Lego, supported by the company’s knowledge of its customers’ wants and needs, has catapulted the brand to new heights and long term success”. In order to reconnect with their original audience, kids, they have recognised that it’s all about creating fun and amazing experiences, the sentiment of which resonates with an adult audience as well.

Lego has a fandom, anyone from movie fanatics reimagining stop-motion scenes of their favourite films, to sculptors and artists creating intricate constructions, not to mention the millions of kids playing with Lego or on Lego games every day; because of this, Lego is an extremely desirable brand partner.

Earlier this year Kit Kat jumped on the Lego bandwagon paying tribute to the Lego empire by creating a ‘build your own break’ model Kit Kat.

Image source www.adweek.com

Just this month AutoTrader launched a Christmas campaign offering to recreate users’ cars out of Lego and have them delivered in time for the big day.

In fact, Netto, who have recently made the move to re-launch in the UK, built a Lego model yellow dog (the Netto emblem) outside one of their stores.

Image source www.marketingweek.com

Lego’s success is such that user generated content is being produced left right and centre, which is something Lego have leveraged, believing it “could be more personal than that created by a brand”. This shift of attention to the consumer as the focal point builds up trust between brand and audience – a connection we know to be the building blocks of Lego’s recent success.

As evidenced here, there is lots to learn from Lego; their values of imagination, creativity, having fun, being caring, education and making connections, have elevated the brand’s status to that of iconic and respectable. They’ve demonstrated the importance of rebranding and staying contemporary and they’ve highlighted important lessons of customer centricity. Go Lego!

For another reminder of the power of Lego (and Christmas), here is a ten metre tall tree erected this year in Pitt Street Mall, Sydney.

Image source – www.mashable.com

Merry Christmas!