April, 2025 – Manchester: Running this Spring (3 May – 8 June), LEGOLAND and The LEGO Group have joined forces to create the LEGO Festival as a celebration of play leading up to the UNESCO International World Day of Play on June 11. The festival will run at seven of the global LEGOLAND parks across the UK, the US, Denmark, Germany and Korea.
To celebrate this festival of play, Merlin Entertainments and TBWA\MCR unveiled a new campaign focussing on the importance of playing together.
The insight underpinning the campaign came from The LEGO Group’s research that kids are experiencing a play deficit, with 1 in 5 families never playing together. This campaign showcases the importance of play for families by putting the power of play back in the hands of kids.
The ‘Girl Who Controlled Playtime’ creative shows how to get a family playing together again, in a way only a child would imagine. It features a young girl who’s eager to share her LEGO brick creations with her parents, but they are too busy to play.
But when she realises she can control her parents with their lookalike LEGO minifigures, she whisks them to the LEGO Festival at LEGOLAND and they are soon playing together as a family and taking joy in being together. Eventually, she realises she no longer needs the Minifigures to get her parents playing because they’ve rediscovered the fun of it all by themselves.
The campaign launched on 22nd April across TV, VOD and OLV accompanied by a social and OOH campaign featuring a lively crowd of LEGO Minifigures hoisting a father and child aloft to create the most playful festival moment imaginable.
The festival consists of five interactive Festival zones that will spark imaginations including Music, Dance, Creative and Chill Out Zones as well as the Gaming Zone featuring LEGO® Fortnite®. The campaign invites families to groove, rock out, build and chillout in the ultimate place to play, the LEGO Festival.
Emily Stadelman, LEGOLAND Global Brand Director, said: “Sometimes we all need to be reminded of the importance of taking some time out, having fun and playing together as a family.
“Unlike other theme parks where the characters are the heroes, LEGOLAND makes kids the heroes. It’s a place where children’s imaginations are realised on an epic scale, turning all of the possibilities of LEGO bricks into a real-life spectacle of play and creativity.
“Our LEGOLAND Festival is the perfect way to bring people together and TBWA\MCR have captured that essence brilliantly with this campaign.”
Gary Fawcett, Executive Creative Director, TBWA\MCR, said: “Merlin Entertainments disrupts the theme park category making them the perfect partner for TBWA\MCR and our disruption approach. Our campaign plays on the concept that it’s not just play that’s missing, it’s playing together that’s missing. We hope this campaign emotionally connects with families by holding up a mirror to their reality. We could all do with a bit more play!”
