Fan created media provides exposure for the LEGO Group

It has perhaps become self-evident in recent years, but the LEGO marketing department has an awful lot of willful volunteers keeping the brick at the forefront of consumers’ minds. It turns out that fans produce 20 times more online content that the LEGO Group itself does, maintaining an awareness of the brand for fellow users online.

Lars Silberbauer Andersen, Senior Global Director of Social and Video for the LEGO Group, explained the phenomenon to warc:

“What’s more important is the content that consumers produce. They produce 20 times more content than we do daily”

He added that brands must work to understand the social needs of their consumers and act in real-time to engage them effectively.

The marketing expert went on to explain the key messages that the LEGO Group hope to convey through social media interactions.

He added that internal research, testing and learning has led Lego to identify two key social needs of its consumers – building it together, and the pride of creation.

The brand has also used the differences in creativity between adults and children to develop its social media-driven projects.

“The challenge is that parents see Lego like a construction toy: you have a manual, you build it. But the magic happens when you smash everything and you rebuild it according to your own creativity and your own language,” Silberbauer said.

‘The pride of creation’ has been a continual mantra in recent years, often used in communications from the LEGO Group. The awareness that the company has of the potential social media can offer is unsurprising, as many of the barriers for fans wishing to share builds, stop motion videos and customs have been removed.