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Score 44 - Future Possibility: Lego expands leadership team, launches multi-market PR review

Lego expanded its marketing leadership. It promoted Ariana Keyser Malutich from brand manager to marketing head for the LEGO Education brand, effective April. In addition, It hired Byron Whitmore, former senior regional business development manager at Arla Foods, as its Americas strategy and business development director in May.

The toy and media company also expanded the leadership for its in-house creative team. It promoted Robert Coire from associate creative director to creative director in January. Plus, it promoted James Gregson from global social media to social media studio head, effective January, to oversee Lego's digital content and social media channels.

There have also been numerous lower-level shifts, all of which can be viewed here.

There's a chance that these new personnel will result in agency shifts, but that chance isn't super high. None of these personnel are a new CMO (that position has been held by Julia Goldin since January 2015), media was only handed to Initiative in November 2017 and creative is handled in-house. In addition, Lego is already in the process of reviewing PR.

We Communications handles global PR for the Lego Education brand) are participating in the review, but we'll keep you posted as we learn more.

We are likely to see a new campaign once the PR review concludes, so sellers should reach out now to remain top-of-mind. At the very least, reach out for spend increases that are likely with a new PR agency and the expanded leadership team. The company spends the most during Q4, which also acts as its buying period. It holds planning conversations in Q1 and constantly releases new products (e.g., it launched a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy set).

Lego predominantly targets kids, but it also engages adults, and has different strategies to reach each demographic. For example, as reported by CNBC, Goldin held an interview at Cannes and said that Lego uses traditional social media channels (e.g., Facebook, YouTube and Twitter) to target adults since so much online content is damaging to kids. Lego still uses social media to reach kids - it launched kid-friendly social network "Lego Life" in 2017 after all - but the majority of its kid-focused efforts go to other channels.

Note: Goldin is based in the UK, so you may want to familiarize yourself with julia.goldin@lego.com.

iSpot reports a YTD national TV spend of $27.7m, the majority of which has been placed on kids' programming (see targeting right). Spend in the same timeframe of 2018 totaled $22.2m, full 2018 spend totaled $73.9m and spend in 2017 totaled $89.6m.

Adbeat reports digital display over the last 12 months has totaled $5.5m and been placed primarily via direct buy (75%), YouTube (11%) and Google (9%) onto sites like disney.com, go.com, youtube.com, coolmath-games.com and factmonster.com. Ads over the last 24 months have totaled $12.9m and been placed primarily via direct buy (70%), YouTube (19%) and Google (7%) onto sites like disney.com, youtube.com, omper.com, wikia.com and factmonster.com.

LEGO also uses outdoor and print, according to Kantar, and both channels saw increases from 2017 to 2018. Print increased by $96,472 to $98,472, and outdoor increased by $288,219 to $415,822.

Hookit reports sponsorships include athletes like Vincenzo Nibali, Tony Hawk and Kasper Schmeichel, as well as teams like Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and Southampton Football Club.