The past few years have challenged teachers and students in ways no one could have ever imagined. And while schools remained “in session,” it looked very different than it had in the past with learning environments distributed across virtual, in-person, and hybrid.

With these unprecedented challenges causing disruption across the learning landscape, we needed to find a way to connect with educators on the importance of STEAM learning, and how LEGO Education solutions could help them reach their students in new and exciting ways while helping to inspire the next generation of creative problem-solvers.

While LEGO enjoys broad awareness, LEGO Education is not well known. Our goal was to grow overall brand awareness among educators, administrators, and parents, generate a stronger understanding of LEGO Education’s specific STEAM solutions and learning system, and promote LEGO’s overarching “Rebuild the World” message around creativity, confidence, and resilience.

At the heart of our campaign is a way of thinking that all kids seem to share, no matter what happens, no matter how many times something breaks or fails, they say, “it’s okay, we can rebuild it.” And it was this resilient mindset that inspired us to create Hannah.

Hannah is a young girl who loves to build—creative, confident, and resilient, she’s always ready for a new challenge and through a series of films we set out to share her story and how the STEAM skills she learned through LEGO Education would translate into major contributions to the world. We chose a mixed reality animation approach to allow us to mix real-world LEGO builds with the kind of beloved characters and worlds that only animation could allow—ultimately creating stories that were emotional, visually stunning, and inspiring to both teachers and students alike.

The creative idea, “It’s okay, we can rebuild it,” is based on a key insight gleaned from our research—kids aren’t afraid to fail. We wanted to harness this resilient mindset and the natural inclination every kid has to keep trying as a way to inspire teachers and students, while also demonstrating the role LEGO Education can play in the process.

From interviews with educators and administrators we learned that they really want students to embrace the process of learning—trying, failing, trying again—because that’s how they build resilience, confidence, and become lifelong learners. In our films, we follow Hannah, a lovable and inspirational figure, as she navigates failure with LEGO Education and purposeful play—learning valuable life skills and lessons that she’ll eventually use to do extraordinary things. Ultimately, the films help to build an emotional connection to learning and demonstrate the power every kid has to rebuild the world.

Hannah’s origin story launched in 2020 as part of a broader global marketing campaign. Over the next 2 years, she came to life in a series of films, animated banners, product videos, print, video vignettes, and social posts. Go-to-market tactics included strategic paid media placements, partner amplification, and PR/community engagement.

The campaign first went live with paid media globally in key regions of the US, China and others. Channels included programmatic display, mobile display, online video, social media, trade display and virtual lead gen events.

Assets were translated/transcreated into 21 different languages for cohesive activation across the world. In English, Chinese, Arabic and everything in between, we empowered trade partners to activate the campaign in their own markets by equipping them with campaign assets and activation guides. It marked the first time that LEGO Education offered a truly integrated suite of marketing assets across the entire customer journey.

On a human level, there was a tremendous love for Hannah—her story was emotional and uplifting at a moment when educators and administrators needed it most. On a campaign level, the data reveals her story really resonated with audiences in meaningful, record-breaking, and business-driving ways:

- Performance: Overall video performance was outstanding with an 83% completion rate

- Lowest Campaign Bounce Rate to-date: Globally, we achieved an all-time-low bounce rate of 26%

- Buying Likelihood: 56% of educators in the US and 58% of educators in China indicated they are much more likely to buy LEGO Education solutions as a result of the campaign

- Engagement: 86% of educators in the US and 96% of educators in China agree that “LEGO Education helps build resilience and builds kids’ confidence in learning” is the key message

- Awareness: Campaign recognition among educators in the US was 57% and 62% in China