In recent years, technology has changed what it means to ‘play well’, and the humble LEGO brick faced being consigned to the history books.

LEGO Australia asked us to develop a creative communications strategy to celebrate a very special milestone – the 50th anniversary of the LEGO brick in Australia. The brief was to create an event or events using PR, experiential, social and digital, that would inspire the LEGO builders of the future.

To maximise impact, we agreed the programme needed a big, campaignable idea with editorial currency throughout that could work across multiple channels across different audiences, areas of Australia and over the year.

The result was the LEGO Festival of Play, a nine-month schedule of activity, online and in the real world, where Australians could join in celebrating half a century of fun and inspiration through play.

Activations included a giant LEGO Forest, an outdoor exhibition of LEGO mosaics, and a 8m x 3m Pop Up Play Pit, to name a few.

The huge earned media success was achieved with only 10% of the total budget spent on media support and no ATL activity at all, highlighting the strength of the content created in engaging consumers and media alike.

The Festival generated 761 pieces of editorial coverage with a PR value of $10 million, reaching 40 million people nationally. 82% included key campaign messaging. There were 52,000 Facebook ‘likes’, 450,000 branded content views and 400,000 Australians took part in experiential activations.

We wanted to use the brick’s 50th anniversary in Australia to prove that LEGO is as relevant today as it was then. We would achieve this by:

• fuelling the imaginations of kids under 14

• reminding parents how much they loved LEGO as kids themselves

• fuelling the passion and creativity of adult fans who never grew out of their love for LEGO

• encouraging LEGO staff to get involved and feel proud of where they work and;

• encouraging retailers to get involved so they could experience the power of the brand first hand

During the campaign’s nine-month duration it achieved:

• 450k branded content views

• 52k Facebook likes

• 147k campaign website unique visits

• 761 pieces of editorial coverage

• $5m+ EAV and $10m PR value

• 400m+ reach

• 82% key message inclusion

• 400k footfall via experiential activations

• an 18% uplift in sales year-on-year

The huge earned and social media success of the campaign was achieved with 10% of the total budget spent on media support, with no ATL activity at all. This highlights the strength of the branded content created from experiential and digital activities that we pushed out through PR in engaging consumers and media alike, and helping to prove that LEGO is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago.

In April, we seeded out a 90 second stop-frame animated campaign trailer, voiced by Australian actor Michael Caton, that followed the story of LEGO from its arrival with salesman John Peddie in 1962 to now.

A giant pop-up LEGO forest then appeared in Sydney’s Martin Place, driving coverage and providing us with striking imagery to distribute to online titles, as well as being shared by the public through social media.

Throughout 2012, we leveraged multiple real-world and online activations including:

• an outdoor public art gallery of LEGO mosaics, designed by 10 of Australia’s leading creatives

• the unveiling of a new way to work with LEGO using Google’s Chrome browser

• enlisting British photographer Mike Stimpson to recreate 10 favourite Australian moments using LEGO minifigures

• constructing a LEGO billboard displaying messages sent by the public and;

• installing a 3m x 8m LEGO brick and pop-up play pit in Melbourne’s Queensbridge Square

The name LEGO is an abbreviation of the Danish words ‘leg’ and ‘godt’, which means ‘play well’, and the brand delivers on its promise.

There’s a myriad of developmental benefits associated with playing with LEGO; fine motor skills, patterning practice, thinking in three dimensions, problem solving, expressing creativity, and teamwork. All from a small interlocking brick.

But in recent years, technology has changed the notion of what it means to play. Nintendo’s Wii, Xbox and the iPad have introduced new and exciting ways for kids to play. Technology has changed the game.

To maximise impact, we devised a big idea that could work across multiple channels – a series of experiences, events, content and collaborations inspiring both kids and adults alike right across the country, to ‘play well’.

Every activation was designed so that there would be content as an output that had editorial currency in multiple channels.

Partnerships with the likes of Powerhouse Museum, Tourism Australia, Google and J.C.Decaux in addition to collaborations with a select group of artists, chefs, designers and actors, allowed us to use their marketing channels and fan-bases to reach new audiences and secure coverage on major global news networks such as Daily Mail, The Sun, News.com.au, Huffington Post, and BBC on multiple occasions.

Sharing functionality would be built into the campaign website, www.festivalofplay.com.au, and for each activation the LEGO Global Facebook page would be utlilised.