The LEGO Brick Café built a new audience for Lego by proving the power of play. It was created exclusively for adults. No children allowed.

We identified the PLAY GAP among our hyper-stressed target audience. Because play is not part of ‘culturally approved’ adult behaviour many have forgotten its incredible mental health benefits.

Working with leading neuroscientists and mindfulness experts, we encouraged adults to play with LEGO to position the brand in a different light. Through the LEGO Brick Café experience we changed how they felt in themselves and how they felt about LEGO.

The LEGO Brick Café is a first of its kind brand experience for LEGO, designed exclusively for adults. No children allowed.

The goal was to reframe LEGO as a brand for adults too.

The experience was launched during World Mental Health Month with neuroscientists and mindfulness experts, and positioned LEGO as a way to improve mental health – because play is clinically proven to reduce stress.

The café exuded all the playfulness and charm of LEGO. It was a safe space away from an ‘always-on’ world where they could relax and discover how to destress with LEGO.

For the past 90-years, LEGO has been making toys and experiences almost exclusively for children.

LEGO’s growth vision identifies adults as an opportunity for the brand but there are big perception barriers to reaching this audience with most adults viewing LEGO as a toy for children (58%) and a toy from their childhood (73%).

To win with this adult audience it was key that they THINK about LEGO, INTERACT with LEGO and ultimately BUY LEGO in a different way.

We focused our attention on professional urban based adults, working in stressful jobs, living busy, pressured lives, constantly juggling lots of balls in the air.

The Objectives:

1. SHOW UP WHERE ADULTS DO in an adult appropriate way, giving adults permission to play.

2. DEMONSTRATE the mental health benefits of LEGO play

3. REFRAME adult perception of LEGO

Over 70% of today’s adults experience stress, which can lead to serious mental and physical health problems. But as Dr Jeffrey Glennon, a neuroscientist from University College Dublin’s School of Medicine told us, there is a relatively simple, if unusual, clinically proven way to reduce this risk.

PLAY.

We identified the PLAY GAP among our target audience. Play is not part of ‘culturally approved’ adult behaviour. We get too busy and grown-up to play. As we become adults, more serious, sophisticated behaviour is appropriate. It has been so long since most adults have allowed themselves to PLAY, many have forgotten its benefits.

To disrupt 90 years of perceptions, we had to take LEGO out of its own comfort zone and put it directly into the ‘adult lives’ of those stressed individuals who had unknowingly packed away the solution to their stress, when they packed away their own childhood.

Our idea was to change LEGO’s Business model, opening an adult-only LEGO play café that gave the freedom and permission to play.

The café was designed to disrupt three firmly held views 1) LEGO is a toy for kids 2) LEGO is not present where adults are, and 3) adults see no benefit in playing with LEGO.

The experience was launched during World Mental Health Month with neuroscientists and mindfulness experts, and positioned LEGO as a way to improve mental health – because play is clinically proven to reduce stress.

The café exuded all the playfulness and charm of LEGO. The experience was nestled in the comforting surrounds of an urban cafe. It was a safe space away from an ‘always-on’ world where they could relax and discover how to destress with LEGO.

By encouraging adults to see LEGO in a different way, they engaged with the unique and novel LEGO Brick Café experience and changed how they felt in themselves and how they felt about LEGO

· Post play: stress levels -33%

· Post play: feeling of calm +850%

· A toy for (adult) me +80%

· Likelihood of buying Lego for yourself/other adults +55%

The LEGO Brick Café and the effect of LEGO play on stress captured the attention and imagination of international media.

The café experience sold out and the LEGO Brick Café reached an audience of over 260million people worldwide – adults who were now talking about LEGO as a brand for grown-ups, and not children.

The LEGO Brick Café opened in Dublin during World Mental Health month. It targeted people working in stressful jobs. This innovative way of dealing with stress captured the attention and imagination of the country, even leading St James’s Hospital, one of Ireland’s biggest acute hospitals, starting to prescribe LEGO play as a way to help their Doctors and Nurses de-stress.