"Eggman Trolls LEGO Sonic," a campaign by The LEGO Group, turned fan criticism into a deliciously villainous narrative that ignited unparalleled audience engagement.

Consensus amongst ardent SEGA fans was we did Eggman dirty. His "ugly" brick-built figure in a previous LEGO Sonic set spawned online ridicule & unsparing trolling. But it provided invaluable insight, revealing the true source of anticipation amongst fans – Eggman’s minifigure in the upcoming lineup. The creative strategy was born out of this: Capitalize on the mistake and turn it into compelling publicity. To win over memelords, we had to think like one…What Would Eggman do?

The brief was simple: convert Sonic fans' (both kids aged 6-12 and adult shoppers) affection for the franchise and video games into love for LEGO Sonic.

The catch? No paid support – only leveraging shared and owned channels. We needed creative strategies to maximize impact on SEGA's platforms, as well as activating the 25% of the active fanbase – adult fans of the 90s videogame eager to share their Sonic love with their kids during this long-awaited comeback moment.

The challenge–an idea with outsized media impact in terms of reach and earned buzz to fulfill our objectives:

Achieve awareness of LEGO Sonic across key markets +7p.p

Beat internal reach & engagement benchmarks

Drive desire for LEGO Sonic sets

In other words, big ambitions without budgets to match. And in a packed marketing calendar with 200+ new launches, we were seriously up against it.

Cultural context was critical to our success. But it wasn’t of specific markets or regions, it was the culture of the Sonic fandom.

Back in the ’90s, Sonic the Hedgehog was cool. But after a series of disappointing Sonic games lampooned by critics and fans alike, SEGA struggled to revitalize the franchise since 2005.

In fact, for the longest time, fans of the video game franchise were often the butt of their own jokes on the Internet and in gaming circles, poking fun at SEGA and deriding themselves for holding out hope for their beloved Sonic.

Even the official Twitter account, @sonic_hedgehog, gained fame for posting internet memes and self-deprecating commentary on its own decline.

This had an important effect on the fandom. Fed a diet of in-jokes, irony, and self-deprecation for over a decade, the fan culture and their humor were unlike any other.

Fast-forward to 2023, SEGA was pulling off a massive comeback for Sonic with a string of successes in mobile and platform gaming, TV and the box office. It ignited new interest and relevance for the videogame franchise, winning over old and new, younger fans alike.

Given the crossover of audiences, it was a no-brainer for The LEGO Group and SEGA to join forces, partnering on a global campaign to launch the official lineup of Sonic the Hedgehog LEGO sets, with particular focus on Americas and Europe as key markets. Unlike the previous one-time collaboration, this marks our first sustained strategic partnership.

Marketing to children is complex due to advertising restrictions and social media age limits. As The LEGO Group, we prioritize child safety. But this meant that the lack of paid traditional media posed a reach problem.

Luckily, Sonic's cross-generational appeal provided a solution. Adults who grew up with Sonic are today's shoppers and parents of young fans. In fact, 25% of Sonic’s active fanbase are exactly that. And in this long-awaited comeback, parents were eager to share their franchise love. Sometimes reaching children doesn’t mean directly engaging them.

We needed an idea exciting enough to 1) inspire sharing with kids as a shared passion 2) generate earned media coverage that reaches as many new, casual fans outside our ecosystems as possible. For this level of buzzworthiness, the lack of drama and bluster was an issue. If we wanted our sets talked about, we were going to have to earn it.

Humor, epitomized by the absurdist @sonic_hedgehog Twitter account, defined Sonic fans. Our success hinged on understanding exactly what makes this fandom, fueled by ironic memes and in-jokes, tick.

Through social listening, it became clear to us: For this unruly, chaos-loving bunch, making fun of the franchise and loving the franchise is the same thing. In fact, cracking self-deprecating jokes was their love language.

So when we unearthed reams of frankly hilarious memes of the “ugly” brick-built Eggman on Reddit, Discord, Youtube and other social channels, we knew we had a golden nugget of an insight. To translate their love for Sonic into love for the partnership, we needed to make fun of ourselves. This wasn’t a partnership launch, this was redemption. Our strategy was to shift the focus onto Eggman finally getting the minifigure respect he deserves, and milk it for maximum effect. After all, villains always have more fun.

Eggman Trolls LEGO Sonic was simple - LEGO Eggman sabotages the partnership launch from the inside out as retaliation.

The strategy asked “What Would Eggman Do?” guiding the execution to infiltrate launch plans across the ecosystems.

We sparked fan frenzy by withholding the Eggman set from the official PR video, only to subtly feature it lurking in the shadows. Then sent vandalized LEGO Sonic sets to influencers, capturing their surprise. We hacked into SEGA's biggest annual event – Sonic Central livestream, launching LEGO Eggman with a character-first rap about his set (which nearly broke the internet) and called for fan build submissions to “fix” LEGO Sonic. Invaded the popular Sonic Forces mobile game and the Sonic Superstars game with LEGO Eggman DLC content. Long-form content entertained fans with easter eggs and deep lore references, while following LEGO Eggman’s takeover of LEGO HQ, factories, stores, and seeding chaos everywhere.

The results were phenomenal in reaching our objectives:

14 billion impressions in total

1.9 billion in potential earned PR reach alone - more than 11x what a comparable LEGO set launch achieved in a similar timeframe.

300% more PR mentions in the first 28h than high performing assets for comparable set launches. Article mentions include mainstream, gaming and pop culture-related media sites not limited to Reddit, Kotaku, Hypebeast, Metro UK, Polygon, IGN, and Forbes.

Social media engagement beating internal benchmarks by 2X, with overwhelmingly positive reaction of a 2200% increase in joy.

US$1M estimated earned social value

Average wishlisting of 12.1%

And not insignificantly, community reactions ranging from comments like “I saw the ending and peed my pants," to a fan-made 10hour loop of LEGO Eggman’s rap, to endlessly creative ugly Sonic fan builds, showed a success in translating love for the franchise into love for the partnership.