Lego has successfully engaged fans through social media by listening to feedback and encouraging fan creativity. After losing touch with fans who were sharing content online, Lego learned to embrace these communities by crowdsourcing ideas and promoting fan-created content. By understanding fans better and addressing issues like a lack of female characters, Lego rebuilt relationships and motivated fans to interact through platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and their Cuusoo idea platform.

1. The LEGO Interlock
with Social Media
Nazy
Haghbayan
Gary
Kasper
Kyle
Krater
Kiran
Sandhu
Qiunan
Zhao

2. Brief Overview
• Why Did We Choose Lego?
• Our Discovery
• A Compilation of Fan Creations
• Follow us on Twitter:
@SocialLego

3. Introduction
Lego from Danish “leg godt” or “play well”
• 1932 Lego founded by Kristiansen
• 1958 Iconic brick
• 1978 Lego miniman
• 1996 www.Lego.com launched
• 2008 Google celebrates Lego’s 50th
anniversary
Source: http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/lego-group/the_lego_history

4. Lego Loses Touch with Fans
• Fans embrace the internet generating content, sharing videos, photos,
blogs
• Disorganized excessive product range, too many brands
• Debates of suing fans for theft of intellectual property
• Needed to learn how to “play nice”
“Our challenge was not how to get these people creating content by issuing some contrived
marketing scheme; it was about issuing a rally cry to channel ideas and stories into a
common theme.”
– Michael McNally, Brand Relations Director
“The firm had no choice but to devolve power to Lego fans via Web 2.0.”
- Tormod Askildsen, Head of Community Development
Van, d. V. (2010). OPINION: Success in social media comes with becoming part of culture. New Media Age, 13.
Case study: Toy story: An iconic brand gets nostalgic and goes digital to engage consumers of all ages. (2009). PR News, 65(39) .
Harnessing the web. (2006). Country Monitor, 14(45), 1.
Building a brand out of bricks. (2003). Brand Strategy, ,0-P. 16.

5. Reconnecting with Fans
Through Mindstorms
• 1990’s new competitive
environment
• 1998 - robot-building kits
with motors, sensors and
small programmable
computers
Gorry, G. A., & Westbrook, R. A. (2009). Winning the internet confidence game. Corporate Reputation Review, 12(3), 195-203.

6. The Real Lego Consumer
• Marketing to teenage boys; sales mediocre
Discovery
• Learned more than half of the buyers over 20
Community Learning
• Communities on Lugnet worked on projects
• Call on fans to improve product
• Promoted to larger community
• AFOLs
– more income to spend
– hired as designers
Gorry, G. A., & Westbrook, R. A. (2009). Winning the internet confidence game. Corporate Reputation Review, 12(3), 195-203.
Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. (2005, 12). REALIZING THE POWER OF INNOVATION WEBS. Optimize.
Dholakia, U. M., & Vianello, S. (2009, Aug 17). Business insight (A special report): E-commerce --- the fans know best: When it comes to building online
brand communities, do unto yourself as others already do unto you. Wall Street Journal.

7. Tweet your answer for a prize:
What TV series inspired the creation of this
Lego RV?
Tweet your answer to
@SocialLego
Clue: Chemistry

8. Movies Made from Bricks
• Movie parodies using stop motion with legos
• Posted on the web (brickfilms, youtube)

9. Lego Encourages Movies
• Steven Spielberg line specific for making movies
• Movie studio on lego.com
• Lego movie app
Howell, P. (2001, Nov 21). Lego movies are all the rage all over the net. Toronto Star.

10. Lego Fans as Innovators
“Fan involvement greatly
enhances our ability to deliver
premium products and an exciting
building experience back to the
adult fan community”
Jamie Berard,
Lego Fan turned Lego Designer
Lego Jewellery by Lisa Taylor
Yun Mi Antorini and Albert M. Muñiz Jr. The Benefi ts and Challenges of
Collaborating with User Communities. Research-Technology Management.
May—June 2013.

11. Lego Cuusoo
• Crowdsourcing
platform
– fans upload ideas
– others vote and suggest
improvements
• Minecraft Micro
World
– 10,000 votes worldwide
in 48 hours
– 30,000 likes on LEGO
and Minecraft FB pages
– 40,000+ tweets

12. What Motivated the Use
of Social Media?
INTERACTION
WITH COMPANY
• Critique
• Complain
• Commend

13. What Motivated the Use
of Social Media?
INTERACTION WITH LEGO ENTHUSIASTS
• Create
• Play
• Share
• Connect

14. What Motivated the Use
of Social Media?
CREATING STORIES…

15. What Motivated the Use
of Social Media?
INTERACTION
WITH LEGO
USERS
• Learn
• Review
• Educate

16. Tweet your answer for a
prize:
Lego comes from the Danish
phrase Leg Godt, which means
what?
Tweet your answer to
@SocialLego

17. Social Media Platform
Engagement
FaceBook
# of
Subscriber/
Followers
YouTube
Channel
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
Club TV
6,952,000
271,000
118,000
112,000
83,000

18. Social Media Platform
Engagement
• Facebook is
the main
platform
• Key features
and apps to:
–
–
–
–
Search
Spread
Show-off
Socialize

19. Social Media Platform
Engagement
My LEGO Timeline
• Share and Showoff
• Cherished LEGO
moments
• Emotional
connection

20. Social Media Platform
Engagement
REBRICK
• Teenagers and
adult fans
• User
generated
content
• Unique
creation
• Selffulfillment

21. Social Media Platform
Engagement
PINTEREST
• Visual
connection
YOUTUBE
• Browse
customized
channel

22. Charlotte’s Letter
Dear Lego company:
My name is Charlotte. I am 7 years old and I
love Legos but I don’t like that there are more
Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls.
Today I went to a store and saw Legos in two
sections — the girls' pink and the boys' blue. All
the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach,
and shop, and they had no jobs but the boys
went on adventures, worked, saved people, and
had jobs, even swam with sharks.
I want you to make more Lego girl people and let
them go on adventures and have fun, ok!?!
Thank you.
From Charlotte

23. Charlotte’s Letter
Since the letter first arrived on the
Internet on January 28th 2014, it has been
retweeted over 2,000 times and shared on
Facebook by over 5,000 users within a week.

24. Charlotte’s Letter
“LEGO play has often been more appealing to boys, but
we have been very focused on including more female
characters and themes that invite even more girls to
build, and in the last few years, we are thrilled that we
have dramatically increased the number of girls who
are choosing to build…. we have added new characters
to the LEGO world to better balance the appeal of our
themes”.
- Lego, January 30th 2014

25. Tweet your answer for a
prize:
What was Lego’s goal for
engaging their fans with
social media?
Tweet your answer to
@SocialLego

26. Distribute Customized Content
which Lego’s Audience Values
• Deliver consistent content to customers that
provides value
• Create environments for your consumers to interact
and share brand love
• Customize content for your customers’ bases—what is
right for one is not valuable for all
• Determine the right distribution consistency
• Mix up your content with design elements, videos,
stories and infographics
• Create a loyal community around your products
through targeted content

27. Thank You!