In July 2014. Greenpeace has launched a new global campaign against partnership between Lego and Shell. Greenpeace belives that Shell is a leading oil drilling company in exploitation of the Artic oil reserves. The goal of campaign is to end the advertising campaign between Lego and Shell that dates back to 1960s. Greenpeace demands that Lego stops putting Shell logo on their brick toys and quit selling their Lego toy sets that includes Shell logo: petrol stations, oil tank trucks, etc.  The campaign was launched with short video called: „Lego everything is not awesome“ posted on Youtube. Whole video is made out of Lego bricks that depicts life on Artic circle, people and animals living in harmony and after the Shell came everything is drowned in oil and life on Artic circle is ruined. Last quotes on video are : „Shell is poluting our kid’s imaginations“ and „ Tell Lego to end it’s partnership with Shell“. Video was taken down after six million views due to copyright claim but was reposted after 18 hours because of massive public demand. Greenpeace also has started campaign on internet with site http://www.Legoblockshell.org and sign a petition on internet site: www.savetheartic.org. They also started guerilla marketing in front of Lego stores in Canada where Greenpeace activists were „selling“ fake Lego sets: „Artic oil Spill“. Greenpeace claimed: „we love Lego, don’t like Lego partnership with Shell“.

Results

• The most viral video in Greenpeace history, over eight million views
• Children playing with Lego bricks in front on Shell London head quarters building
• „Legolution“ : people creating photographs with Lego toys protesting against Shell
• One million people had emailed Lego to quit it’s partnership with Shell
• Lego has announced that it will not renew current deal with Shell

Conclusion

Greenpeace succeeded with campaign „Lego: everything is not awesome“ because Lego toys have many fans in the world, it doesn’t matter if they are children, parents or adults. Almost everybody loves Lego toys and videos made of animated Lego toys are very popular on Youtube platform so people shared video and it became viral. Greenpeace succeeded in their  campaign beacause they engaged  Lego’s  main audiences: children and their parents. In a sort of Greenpeace started conversation about brands responsibilities. One of the key point of success is that campaign was not directly against Lego but against product placement that in this case included Shell. In the end: „ Lego dumped Shell, everything is awesome again“.

Written by Tomislav Tomašković

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2014/oct/10/greenpeace-lego-shell-climate-change-arctic-oil#img-1

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/09/lego-ends-shell-partnership-following-greenpeace-campaign

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/01/greenpeace-lego-shell-partnership-toys-oil-arctic#img-1

http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/Blog/how-lego-got-awesome-to-savethearctic/blog/50927/