After Covid, toy marketing in Australia was turbocharged. An inundation of new products, a blitz of marketing and the awakening of dormant theatrical releases stealing kids attention, made objectives for the LEGO brand’s lead recruitment theme a huge task.

• +10% Awareness.

• +10% Desire.

• +5% Sales.

Luckily, they had a new product line-up to achieve this. LEGO City Stuntz was a range of bikes, trucks, and cars inspired by stunt teams. Complete with flaming ramps, loop-to-loops and exciting features, it had all the pieces to create something special.

To elevate the 'cool' factor we knew ads wouldn’t cut it. We interrogated cultural analytics to profile what counts for cool amongst 6-8 year-olds, quickly uncovering a powerful truth… Whether it's three-storey bottle flips, 8km long Hot Wheel tracks, the more extreme kids take their play, the more attention they earn.

INSIGHT: IF IT'S NOT EXTREME, IT'S SIMPLY NOT SEEN.

Using cultural analytics we identified the one thrill-seeking brand with all elements needed to launch LEGO City into the cool books…

NITRO CIRCUS.

The undisputed #1 Action Sports Brand in the world, with a following that dwarfs any Australian sporting property:

• +25.2M social followers (just shy of the Olympics; 31.5M).

• +1B annual content views.

• +150 countries.

It’s also a brand Australian kids adore. With the second biggest following globally and an Australian tour coming up, we saw our opportunity and struck the ultimate kid-friendly, thrill-seeking partnership between these two iconic brands. An extreme achievement in itself, as this was 100% identified, brokered and activated by us (a media agency from Australia), and scaled to the world.

We needed to go big or go home with a brand partnership that brought extreme energy and influence amongst our hard-to-win 6-8 year-old audience.

Badging alone would not earn cool cred, we needed to inject strong LEGO City energy into the experience and ensure LEGO City Stuntz was unmissable.

OUR STRATEGY: LEGO City GOES NITRO.

Execute the most expansive, deeply integrated, exciting partnership in Nitro Circus history to earn respect and brand love for LEGO City Stuntz.

Like any good stunt, painstaking planning makes it or breaks it. We dialled every single element up to 11, and via a carefully architected three pillared strategy: -

1. RAMP-UP THE HYPE: Turbocharge co-marketing to prime fans love for LEGO City Stuntz.

2. WOW-THE-CROWDS: Dominate the event to ensure LEGO City Stuntz was unmissable.

3. CREATE A SHOWSTOPPER: Execute LEGO City Stuntz in a fashion unique to LEGO City to memorably earn respect.

RAMP-UP THE HYPE.

We turbocharged excitement via a co-marketing blitz across TV, social, online, radio, outdoor, print, recruiting athletes as ambassadors creating content re-enacting iconic tricks using Stuntz, and hosting activation days for +300 kids.

WOW-THE-CROWDS.

We saturated stadiums with branding - big screens, perimeter signage, jump-ramp takeovers, on-field VIP areas, giant Stuntz builds, brick-in-hand experiences, and minifigure mascots. This extended into broadcast, streams and socials with +489 pieces of content produced across the tour.

We took over the iconic ‘Stunt-of-the-Night’ award, creating a custom LEGO trophy, embedding LEGO City in highlight content reaching +1.43M people.

CREATE-A-SHOWSTOPPER.

A world-first money-can’t-buy competition encouraged kids to design Nitro Circus’ iconic stunt vehicles to be debuted at the World Games in Brisbane, a globally televised/streamed event reaching +150 countries.

Two winners flew to NITRO World Games to witness their creation’s unveiling and maiden jump, with behind-the-scenes content broadcast to reinforce LEGO City cred.

Nitro Circus’ Tour Down Under was officially their biggest in the Southern Hemisphere.

• 9 cities. 10 months. 3 world-records.

• +266.4M earned impacts via 326 outlets (+146M within AU/NZ).

• +71M social impressions.

• +85,500 event attendance.

Helping LEGO City reclaim its cool status and shatter all campaign objectives:

• +22% Awareness STLY (+2x goal).

• +16.1% Desire STLY (+3x goal).

• +12% Sales YoY (+2.1x goal).

LEGO City GOES NITRO proves the cultural and commercial impact of deep, integrated and mutually beneficial partnerships over tactical marketing ‘stunts’.