I’m a big fan of LEGO. I have watched numerous LEGO mini movies, and it’s only natural for me to watch the full-length The LEGO Movie – with awe.
In this post, I’m not going to talk on how awesome The LEGO Movie is (it IS awesome, by the way!) but I’m going to talk on how the movie takes brand storytelling to a new level.
The bricks. The characters. The adventure. Everything is awesome.
In fact, the bricks themselves are not that awesome compared to the story being told.
Watching the movie, you will notice that there are many scenes where Emmet, the main character, need to learn how to be a “master builder.” A master builder is someone who can build stuffs with his imagination.
The story goes on to scenes full of LEGO products and culminate when “the god” – called “the man upstairs” – wants to glue every brick in place. It turns out that “the man upstairs” is a dad-slash-LEGO-fan who want to build a LEGO city with everything sits in place, whereas his son-slash-LEGO-fan wants to mix everything and get creative.
The end is epic: Dad agrees that LEGO bricks should not be glued in place. LEGO structures should be able to be torn apart and rebuild them into something else. Everyone can be a master builder – just like Emmet.
A powerful storytelling that features everything: The fun, the creativity… and the product itself.
Story enforces brands and sells products
As you can see, the Movie doesn’t sell LEGO products; the movie “sells” ideas. And guess what, ideas inspire and entertain. Products are just tools. People would buy LEGO because of the brand images and ideas – the precision engineering of LEGO bricks won’t get them to buy.
Well done, LEGO. Lessons learned.
