Ninjago is one of the most successful LEGO franchises, with a TV show in its 9th season, plus a feature length film, countless toys, video games, magazines, books, and lots more. Fans have seen just about everything Ninjago but they still wanted more. We had to figure out a way to promote a line of new Ninjago LEGO sets while creating unexpected content that fans had never seen before.

Ninjago is one of the most successful LEGO franchises. The characters have appeared across TV shows, movies, countless toys, books, magazines, video games, and more. Fans have seen pretty much everything Ninjago and still wanted more. So, we created the Ninjago Dragon Cam, a 24/7 stop-motion “live” cam, giving viewers a chance to new way to engage with the world of Ninjago and see what their favorite ninjas and dragons get up to when they’re not appearing everywhere else. And it was all made from LEGO bricks. The cam showed a candid side of these beloved characters that fans couldn’t find anywhere else.

After nine seasons of Ninjago on TV, and even more content elsewhere, we had to find a way to give fans a new view of this beloved universe. Fans are invested in the characters and plotlines, so we treated the characters as if they had lives outside of the media where they’ve appeared previously. Our Dragon Cam gave these fans a chance to see what happens between the episodes and movies and video games. And we matched their passion for Ninjago with their native digital behavior, which is watching lots and lots of videos on YouTube.

We worked with an animation studio and thousands of LEGO bricks to create the footage broadcast through the live cam feed. We crafted scenes that would appeal broadly to kids and parents alike, as well as scenes that would entertain new fans who weren’t as familiar with Ninjago.

The Dragon Cam ran for months on YouTube Live. We also ran the YouTube Live feed on the LEGO Ninjago homepage where viewers could purchase the sets they saw featured in the Dragon Cam scenes. Digital media directed new viewers to the cam as well. And to promote the experience, we created a trailer for the live cam in the style of an epic action movie which ran as pre-roll on YouTube.

Fans loved it. With over four million people watching a total of 600,000 hours of Dragon Cam footage. The average view time topped 9 minutes. And fans even began ripping footage from the live cam and uploading it to their own Ninjago fan accounts on YouTube, archiving the action themselves.

Four million viewers racked up a total of 600,000 hours watching the Dragon Cam, with an average view time of 9 minutes. Beyond the numbers, we saw excited LEGO Ninjago fans on YouTube ripping footage from the livestream to upload to their own channels as an archive of the experience.