Danish toy company LEGO soars over its competitors like Mattel, Funko, and Hasbro. LEGO sales rose to USD 4 billion last year, whereas its competitors reported declining sales.
The classic LEGO bricks we’re all familiar with were invented in 1949. Astonishingly, new brick sets made today are still compatible with the older ones. Everything LEGO creates can be ‘fit’ to everything else that’s LEGO.
Even with each new fantastic LEGO iteration released, the fundamental building blocks stay the same. Unsurprisingly, the same innovation and universality are also core to LEGO’s marketing strategy.
With millions of online followers and a vocal, active, and thriving fanbase, LEGO is at the top of its social media game.
Let’s see how LEGO’s social media strategy builds on its prominence in pop culture.
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LEGO has its roots in 1932 when founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen made the first set of wooden toys. Since then, the construction toy company has expanded into film and TV, board games, video games, education, science and technology, software, and theme parks.
Sure, LEGO is a prime playground catering to the entertainment and education of children. But with its forays into films and collaborations with other pop culture icons, the brand is an adult favorite, too.
In the age of the internet where geeks and nerds thrive, LEGO has a finger in nearly every pie. DC movies and LEGO? Check. LEGO Death Star? Check. LEGO Minecraft? Check!
With solid market research, LEGO is never short of entertaining and culturally relevant content for its social media accounts. And where the good content is, there people flock to, in the millions, as proven by LEGO.
Here are the mindblowing number of followers on LEGO’s main social media accounts.
- Instagram: 10.3 million
- Facebook: 15 million
- YouTube: 17.6 million
- Twitter: 1 million
- LinkedIn: 1 million
- TikTok: 951.9K
- Reddit: 1.4 million
LEGO’s adjunct and spinoff social media accounts also boast engaging content and thousands of followers. The brand is a beloved global phenomenon. However, it still employs smart social media strategies to draw and retain followers.
Read on to learn how LEGO’s marketing strategy works like clockwork.
The key tenets of LEGO’s marketing strategy
The core of LEGO’s appeal is its iconic interlocking blocks used to build real and imagined structures.
The plastic blocks came in numerous fast-selling Lego City and Legoland Town themes depicting generic life. From here, train sets, garages, LEGO Minifigures, and Lego Space were all just one hit after another.
These building sets soared in popularity from the get-go. But what launched the brand into mainstream pop culture was its collaboration with Star Wars and Lucasfilm Ltd, starting in 1999.
LEGO Star Wars was the company’s first licensed property, and it was a roaring success, both with fans of LEGO and fans of the Star Wars franchise.
LEGO was just getting started, though. Through the years since that first iconic partnership, the brand has ventured into all forms of media and entertainment. And LEGO’s social media accounts constantly leverage its widespread integration into pop culture.
Like many successful companies, LEGO’s social media strategy includes:
- Posting timely product updates and launches
- Experimenting with diverse post styles and content formats
- Maintaining consistent branding and voice
- Conducting exciting events and challenges
What the brand truly excels at is going beyond these basic strategies to engage audiences with truly spectacular collaborations and creative content.
Let’s see exactly how the brand aces at social media marketing.
1. Creating visually striking and entertaining content
The first thing to grab your attention when you open any one of LEGO’s social media pages is the splash of color and dynamic imagery. LEGO blocks are known for their tactility and visual appeal.
Online, the brand reinforces this appeal by creating high-quality content rich with information, entertainment value, and visual charisma.
Take this Twitter post showing audiences a day in the life of a LEGO model designer.
The content in the video is immediately striking, thanks to the colors, shapes, and fast-paced camera work. LEGO’s content strategy is geared toward people who might find this behind-the-scenes video informative and fun to watch.
LEGO is hardly new to the world of striking content and experimental video techniques. Brickfilms featuring stop motion and LEGO blocks go as far back as the 1960s. And in 2014, when LEGO released The LEGO Movie, people hailed it as Hollywood finally catching up to the charm of this filmmaking style.
Brickfilms, stop motion, and animations thrive in the age of YouTube and other video-based social media platforms. And lots of user-generated content exists out there, constantly feeding into LEGO’s online popularity. However, nothing beats the way the brand leverages stylistic videos on its social media pages.
Here’s an example from YouTube where the brand has a series of videos based around the LEGO Friends brick and minifigure sets.
Striking behind-the-scenes videos would appeal to older kids and adults whereas such animated videos as the LEGO Friends ones would appeal to younger kids. LEGO ensures it churns out enough creative content to hold the attention of all types of audiences.
2. Collaborating with other big brands and labels
As mentioned earlier, big brand collaborations and partnerships are central to LEGO’s marketing strategy. The brand has numerous tie-ups with brands from diverse industries and realms.
While it started with Star Wars, today LEGO has collaborations with brands like Adidas, IKEA, Levi’s, Epic Games (Fortnite), Disney, Ferrari, Marvel, and Hasbro. The list is so long, it’s likely any film, game, or media company you can think of has a tie-up with LEGO.
Case in point, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures released the classic sci-fi thriller Dune: Part Two in February this year. And LEGO put up multiple posts promoting its Dune-themed LEGO brick sets.
Videos showing the pieces from each set and the sets being assembled were met with a lot of excitement and eagerness online. LEGO timed these posts with the much-awaited movie release, thus drawing more out of this collab thanks to the trending topic.
3. Leveraging pop culture to the maximum
LEGO’s marketing strategy where pop culture is concerned is closely tied to its various big brand collaborations.
Once the brand releases merchandise based on a collaboration, it doesn’t limit itself to merely promoting the launch of new products. Instead, LEGO keeps touching base with various pop culture references and fan favorites.
For instance, here’s a post that LEGO shared on Facebook displaying the photographs of the toy photography group ‘Stuck in Plastic’.
England’s red telephone boxes are so iconic, they’ve long since become a part of pop culture. These boxes started as sore thumbs in the neighborhood, then became staples in classic movies, and are now a big tourist attraction.
LEGO cashes in on this pop culture reference with posts like the one above.
Other examples of LEGO’s content marketing strategy relating to pop culture are its posts of Dungeons & Dragon, Mario, Peppa Pig, and its own The Lego Movie throwback content.
4. Staying on top of current themes and trends
LEGO might not jump on every viral trend out there, but the brand does keep up to date on current themes and topics.
While LEGO’s content strategy is not overly meme-based or purely humor-based, the brand still attracts audiences who appreciate thematic content and smart references.
Take a look at LEGO’s Valentine’s Day-themed post on Facebook.
LEGO’s social media strategy is two-pronged here. On one hand, the brand dips into the trending Valentine’s Day buzz going around in February. On the other hand, the brand is also drawing in queer and ally audiences who find the inclusive message “So many ways to build love” appealing.
Another example of the brand using trending themes is this ASMR video on YouTube.
This YouTube short is created with ambient sounds of the fireplace crackling, all depicted in the typical LEGO blocks style.
LEGO has exclusive brick sets and entertaining content for adults, and a majority of the fans online are adults. However, the brand doesn’t lose sight of its primary goal of creating quality, educational, and inspirational toys for children.
Going a step ahead, LEGO actively advocates for education and social change. This is seen where building and boosting children’s creativity, confidence, and capabilities are concerned.
For example, LEGO’s ‘Build the Change’ social program motivates children to creatively tackle changes they’d like to see in the world by visualizing them.
LEGO even has separate websites and social media accounts for its education and social initiatives. LEGOeducation on Instagram is filled with community-driven content aimed at making learning a more fun and fruitful process.
Apart from this, LEGO’s social media strategy includes spreading social change awareness, like in the ‘More than Perfect’ video.
This video is a great ad for LEGO, but the semi-scripting quality and the authentic note of encouraging young girls land well with audiences.
Such videos and posts get people to flock to LEGO’s social media accounts looking for more inspirational and educational content.
LEGO is no stranger to enjoying a massive online following. And the brand posts consistently, every week, on all its social media accounts.
Here’s what this means in terms of user engagement.
1. LEGO on Instagram
With 10.3 million followers on Instagram, LEGO has its hands full catering to the steady audience it has on the platform. The brand has a whopping 7,692,575 total engagements here, proving its success with online browsers.
The top post in terms of engagement is the 10-year homage to The LEGO Movie. The funny ‘Where are they now’ post shows characters from the movie in ‘then’ and ‘now’ style images.
This goes to show LEGO’s social media strategy of immersing into pop culture is a rewarding one.
2. LEGO on Twitter
LEGO has 1 million followers on Twitter, less than 1/10th of what it has on Instagram. Yet, this is a huge number, and the brand stays active on the platform with hundreds of weekly tweets and quick replies.
Here are well, the top post in engagement is the one celebrating 10 years of The LEGO Movie. The post promoting the LEGO X Dune collaboration and minifigures is the second most popular one with 20,893 engagements.
But LEGO’s content marketing strategy on Twitter reveals an interesting insight: even though videos are its least frequent media type, they are still the brand’s top engagement driver.
3. LEGO on Facebook
LEGO has a more reserved approach to Facebook in terms of post frequency. In the last three months, the brand has posted 87 times.
Like on Twitter, LEGO’s most popular posts on Facebook in the last three months are those featuring The LEGO Movie and Dune.
Surprisingly, text-based posts are among the least frequent but most engaging ones on LEGO’s Facebook account.
4. LEGO on YouTube
Most brands barely post one video per month where their YouTube account is concerned. But for LEGO, YouTube is a haven of new and exciting content.
With 1,296 videos posted in the last 3 months and 42 million views in total on them, LEGO’s content marketing strategy on YouTube is a lesson in humility.
The most popular video in the last 3 months is the LEGO Friends Dance-off one with teen dance and movie idol Merrick Hanna. The video has 1,892,178 views and features Hanna dancing off against his mini-doll version.
What’s also interesting to note is how LEGO’s YouTube page gets an influx of followers now and then. The week of 18th March saw 100,000 new followers added to the channel.
Leverage influencer tracking and market research to draw audiences
The creativity and imagination LEGO inspires in its users and fans are equally matched by what the brand displays on social media.
Everything LEGO creates and posts is highly entertaining and informative. And all of it finds relevance in pop culture and media. LEGO knows how to keep its strong foothold in the realms of construction toys and public sentiment.
The key pieces of LEGO’s social media strategy are:
- Using influencer and big-brand collaborations to give rise to continued interest and buzz around the brand’s products and new launches
- Investing time and effort in market research to learn what content will pop with audiences and be most relevant and engaging
- Crafting high-quality video content to showcase the multi-faceted potential of LEGO bricks and other LEGO products and ventures
What kind of pop culture references could your brand draw on? Should you collaborate with celebrities and influencers or with other brands in the same field? Reach out to the experts at Keyhole to learn your specific social media recipe.
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Frequently Asked Questions
LEGO engages with fans through interactive content, contests, and polls, fostering a sense of community and sparking creativity.
User-generated content is integral to LEGO's strategy, as it showcases fan creations, builds loyalty, and encourages participation.
LEGO uses metrics like engagement rates, reach, and sentiment analysis to evaluate campaign performance, ensuring continuous improvement and impact.