LEGO’s holiday campaign turned Amazon Lockers into an in-store billboard

For years, billboards have been known as highway eye candy or a piece in the spectacular Times Square visual puzzle. While those marketing opportunities still exist, the billboard has evolved: What if a massive, colorful display could be at a customer’s literal fingertips?

That was the idea last year, as LEGO looked to expand brand awareness during the 2022 holiday season. The toy company was interested in a strategy as bold and colorful as the building blocks that have entertained kids (and kids at heart) for nearly 100 years. When LEGO reached out to Amazon Ads, the brand worked with the Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab (BIL) to identify possible solutions for LEGO’s objective.

For LEGO, a company whose brand awareness is already at 90% according to Statista,¹ the goal was less about net-new exposure. Instead, the holiday campaign focused on audiences who may not currently have LEGO as a part of their lives. “One of the purposes here was to get in front of people that think of LEGO only as a brand they want to own, but might not believe is within their price range,” said Brett Wessel, associate manager of B2B e-commerce retail marketing at LEGO. “We wanted to drive them to that brand Store and see that there is a broad spectrum of price points.”

The BIL suggested using Amazon Lockers as a potential opportunity. Available to brands whether or not they sell on the Amazon store, the lockers offer a safe, secure, and convenient place to pick up and return Amazon packages. Locker wraps—customizable art used to cover the outside of Amazon delivery lockers—create an unmissable opportunity to ensure that brand messaging stands out to people picking up packages or walking past them at key retail and college campus locations across the U.S.

With opportunities across multiple verticals including retail stores, shopping malls/centers, pharmacies, grocery stores, convenience stores, and even gas stations, advertisers have the opportunity to reach relevant audiences with their messaging. LEGO shared their artwork with Amazon Ads: a bright blue display with snowflakes, showing children and adults playing with LEGO sets with the phrase Let’s Rebuild the Holiday. Along with the art, a QR code linked out to a matching landing page and the LEGO Store on Amazon.

The worldwide holiday campaigns that LEGO had been already using inspired the messaging for the lockers. Instead of reinventing new messaging for LEGO’s locker wraps, the marketing play was an extension of the brand’s larger holiday campaign. The brand hoped to reach audiences who may not have felt that LEGO was for them, or more specifically that the brand may have been too expensive for their consideration. The QR code on each locker encouraged shoppers to scan and follow the link for holiday gift ideas and explore the full catalog of what LEGO had to offer.

LEGO treated the lockers as an opportunity to place a billboard where they wanted to reach new customers—specifically 7-Eleven and Wawa locations. With a specific focus on convenience stores, the holiday campaign launched on December 1 and ran until December 29, 2022. “We don’t want to be thought of as so expensive that parents don’t go out and even think about it for their children,” Wessel added. By advertising in a wide range of locker locations, LEGO hoped to avail itself to their audience, no matter the price point they might be working within.

In an MFour iOOH Brand Lift Report, the campaign accomplished LEGO’s goal of reminding consumers how the brand provides an opportunity to build and be creative (27% of ad recognizers) and that their products make a great gift for the holidays (42% of ad recognizers).² In MFour’s survey to consumers, the campaign resulted in a 3% lift in brand recognition and a 15% lift in brand consideration.

From LEGO’s perspective, the campaign was a success. “Given the audiences that we were hoping to engage and get the LEGO name in front of,” Wessel said, “this campaign felt like a really interesting way to meet the shoppers where they are in their everyday lives.”