LEGO aimed to introduce India-focused product ranges to make creative play an essential part of children's lives in the Indian market. Prior to this campaign, LEGO's visibility was primarily confined to the building blocks subcategory (less than 5 percent of the overall toys category), with minimal brand recall and organic relevance on Amazon India. With the help of Amazon Ads, LEGO implemented a data-driven, full-funnel strategy to introduce over 20 play themes and more than 150 new SKUs to the Indian market. The campaign leveraged Amazon's first-party data to create custom audience segments for each product range based on specific passion points, connecting products like LEGO Friends, LEGO Duplo, and LEGO Ninjago to the most relevant consumers.
Through a sophisticated combination of programmatic video for awareness, retargeted display ads for consideration, and search ads for conversion, LEGO achieved exceptional results: an eight times increase in branded searches, 20 percent jump in engagement metrics, 163 percent growth in sales, and a 53 percent increase in market share. The campaign delivered a remarkable 24 times return on ad spend (ROAS), with 84 percent of sales coming from new customers, successfully transforming LEGO from a niche building blocks brand to a major player across multiple toy subcategories in the Indian market.
LEGO aimed to introduce India-focused product ranges, making creative play an essential part of children's lives and fostering a culture of building and creativity in the Indian market. The campaign sought to drive awareness and consideration of these new launches with corresponding consumer target segments, with measurement focused on relevance of reach, engagement, cost efficiency, sales, and return on investment.
This was the first LEGO campaign of this magnitude targeting the Indian market, introducing more than 20 play themes, international bestsellers, and over 150 new SKUs. This scale brought its own set of challenges as each launch/range catered to a different audience segment. Prior to the campaign, LEGO's visibility was mainly confined to the building blocks subcategory (which had less than 5 percent share in the overall toys category). In the broader toys category, LEGO had limited visibility with branded searches capturing only 2-4 percent share of all toy searches on Amazon India. Only 45 percent of LEGO's SKUs had organic relevancy (appearing in the top 20 search results on generic searches), resulting in LEGO having a lower engagement score (0.7-0.8 times) compared to global toy brands like Hasbro and Mattel. LEGO's value market share in the toys category was also less than 5 percent.
LEGO's campaign aimed to penetrate the Indian market by targeting affluent urban parents of children in the six-14 age range, primarily in India's top eight cities. Leveraging Amazon's audience intelligence, LEGO tailored its marketing strategy to various age groups by emphasizing their passion points. Custom audiences were created for each product line:
This custom approach helped expand LEGO's reach not only as a brand but also for their specific product ranges, increasing recall at the product-range level.
The creative strategy involved using a mix of nostalgia-inducing videos showcasing genre-led play themes (such as Harry Potter and Ninjago) and discount call-outs for popular themes (like LEGO Classic) to engage consumers and drive sales. The media strategy combined programmatic video, retargeted display, and search ads to maximize reach, engagement, and conversions on Amazon India.
Amazon's audience intelligence helped LEGO identify affluent areas outside its initial focus markets to broaden its scope across India. The campaign leveraged insights about the path to purchase, discovering that approximately 40 percent of LEGO sales happen after one month of the first detail page visit, which informed the decision to spread the campaign across at least three-four weeks covering various discovery and active research touchpoints.
The multi-ad media strategy included programmatic (Amazon DSP) video ads to create awareness, retargeted display ads to drive consideration, and search ads to drive conversions. Programmatic video ads were powered by first-party signals-based targeting strategy, while a mix of static ads and responsive e-commerce ads were leveraged for driving consideration and conversion.
The campaign execution was powered by several key technologies:
The campaign implementation involved a full-funnel strategy with over 90 percent of impressions delivered on mobile. Real-time adaptations based on performance results ensured that the messaging resonated with parents seeking meaningful toys for their children. The data-led approach included:
This sophisticated execution ensured precise targeting and high engagement, leveraging Amazon's retail media capabilities to its fullest extent while delivering a personalized experience for each audience segment.
The LEGO campaign delivered exceptional results across multiple key metrics:
Reach and Awareness
Engagement and Consideration
Sales and Business Results
Category Growth
LEGO was able to grow its visibility beyond the building blocks subcategory and grow faster in almost all toy subcategories where it launched new ranges:
These results demonstrate how the campaign successfully transformed LEGO from a niche player primarily known for building blocks to a major contender across multiple toy subcategories in the Indian market. The significant increase in market share, coupled with the impressive acquisition of new customers and exceptional return on investment, validates the effectiveness of the data-driven, custom audience approach implemented through Amazon's advertising solutions.
The campaign's success in driving growth across multiple product ranges and subcategories shows how LEGO was able to effectively communicate the unique value propositions of different product lines to their most relevant audience segments, establishing a strong foundation for continued growth in the Indian market.
