Agency: FCB Johannesburg
Photographer: Gerard Turnely
Director: Brett Morris
Copywriter/Art Director: Lance Vining
Art Director: Charles Foley
Awards: Grand Prix—Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival

Great stuff… and for me, better than that submarine – or whatever it was! – a month or so back. Yeah, the shadows are very explicit, but kids really do see all that detail – and more – in Lego. The ads are just trying to explain this to the adults so that they can “get” why their kids want more of the stuff…

this has been on a wall at my ad school for two years

Beautiful. But how can one make a bad ad for Lego? It’s a great kids toy that just has 3 billion cool concepts for it. It’s not like an itch cream or anything.

This is one of those gorgeous “Lurzers Archive” concepts that is also what I call a “shooting fish in a barrel” concept. Who ever gets a creative brief that simply states “Visually communicate the essence of Lego blocks”?. No one. You’re always going to be tasked with moving much product for the new Star Wars toy, or for the latest Bionicle set. I can barely FIND basic Lego blocks on the store shelves for my kid. I can’t imagine that Lego’s strategy is to move basic block sets anymore.

I wonder more about how this ad originated. Was it actually requested by the client, or was it shown to them (and they were convinced to then run it)? I smell a situation designed to win an award at Cannes. With no actual marketing parameters/objectives to hold one back, it’s a lot easier to win at Cannes.

So simple yet so effective, i reckon these ads work great for kids aswell as parents, compared to the Hot Wheels ad.

good stuff!

I am not so sure it’ll win cannes. More like archive stuff. Also, the dinosaur one is really not as strong as the others.

VERY nice!

Jeremy,

The reason for showing the basic blockss isn’t to o sell a specific product, it’s reinforcing & building brand equity. Everyone knows those basic shapes as “Lego,” that’s why it’s so effective.

Love it! Totally perfect on the imagination of children and legos. It makes me think of the mutant animals my sister and I use to create with Legos.

It’s really a wonderful advertising… but for adult people!

I think that many kids will not be hit for the ad, but i suppose in this case they are not the target

I know this post is getting old, but I hope to rectify something here. These ads ARE NOT from FCB, they are from Blattner Brunner, and were done before the Cannes work.

Ben Requena, your credits are wrong, they are as follows:

CD/ Jay Giesen, Dave Kwasnick
AD, CW/ Derek Julin
Photographer/ Tom Cwenar

For any non-believers, check it out – http://www.derekjulin.com/ I work with Derek and this was the original concept. I coded this website when we were in college less than a year ago. Check out the advertising section, second row, third and fourth tabs. These are the original thought.
–
brandon

Emailed Fredrick about corrections. I apologize for the confusion. A correction should be made shortly.

Dinosaurs? Yawn, so cliché.
Destroyer? Tank? Death and destruction anyone?

Sad. Lego was always such a nice educational thing… what happened?

I ALSO would to like to set things right as Brandon mentioned in an above post. These ads are from Blattner Brunner by Derek Julin, my future son-in-law ( we hope !!!) . They were done long before the Cannes work that was mentioned above. I kindly ask that you correct your post Ben. Thank you. Derek is multi-talented and one of the humblest people on earth. He has worked VERY hard and has never had anything handed to him. I have known him for 8 years and am very proud of him. Excuse the gushing —- but this guy deserves tons of accolades.

ALSO, I just love this ad. It talks to you and makes you remember a kid’s vivid imagination. It is brilliant !!

Sheer brilliance. Also, makes my heart melt. So spot on.

As a kid who grew up playing with legos, this ad stirs notalgia and reminds me how legos can be a very creative outlet for a child.

very nice work this LEGO stuff.
But is lego right?

Brilliant!!