LEGO leverages HAQM signals for building growth brick-by-brick in India

Who to reach

HAQM Ads helped LEGO develop audience cohorts based on identified passion points with HAQM’s custom audience building capabilities. Leveraging HAQM’s first-party signals, LEGO reached out to their relevant audience (affluent households with kids aged 4–12 years) who browsed for dolls and girls’ clothing from LEGO’s Friends line. Similarly, for their NinjaGo line, LEGO engaged audiences based on Prime Video fantasy genre views and fantasy book purchases on HAQM India. The selected geolocations were determined using HAQM Pi based on the brand’s priority regions and high potential areas (sales contribution on HAQM and high unit growth in the past six months).

How to reach

LEGO implemented a sophisticated multichannel advertising strategy, beginning with interest-based video ads to draw the attention of relevant consumer cohorts, followed by strategic remarketing through static content. The campaign utilized thematic 15-second videos, which were deployed across HAQM MX Player (formerly HAQM miniTV) and various third-party websites to build awareness across different age groups. To maintain top-of-mind brand recall, these audiences were subsequently engaged through display ads on third-party websites. On HAQM, LEGO carefully identified and leveraged relevant keywords for each theme, strategically positioning their SKUs to achieve top-of-search visibility. The strategy was further enhanced during special events and brand days, where LEGO utilized HAQM homepage display campaigns to generate awareness for new product launches.

What to measure

LEGO measured campaign success across the funnel. At the top of the funnel, they measured branded search share in the preteen and teen toy category and improvements in search rankings. In the mid-funnel, LEGO monitored its share in category consideration (page views) and add-to-cart rates. Bottom-funnel focused on sales and growth in new-to-brand customer acquisitions.

Learnings and results

Through insights gained from HAQM Marketing Cloud, LEGO continuously refined and optimized their campaign strategy, revealing several key findings that shaped the campaign’s success. For instance, HAQM DSP emerged as the most cost-effective solution for reaching their relevant audiences. Additionally, insights revealed that the optimal frequency for maximizing purchase intent was nine touchpoints, leading them to extend the campaign's duration.

Most significantly, LEGO discovered a powerful multiplier effect in purchase intent when customers engaged with multiple ad formats. Purchase intent increased 7x when customers interacted with both display ads and sponsored ads.¹ This effect was even more pronounced with exposure to all three ad formats: video ads, display ads, and sponsored ads, showing a 12x increase in purchase intent.²

These insights contributed to impressive results. By Q4 2023, LEGO became one of the most engaged brands on HAQM India with a 30% increase in consideration share among the toys category.³ Sales grew by 163% on HAQM, seeing a 53% increase in category market segment share.⁴ LEGO’s growth on HAQM was 7x higher than the overall toys category, making it the fastest growing toy brand on HAQM India in 2023.⁵

“Developing the culture of building, and helping Indian kids experience the pride of creation is a priority for us,” says Geetika Saxena, Media Lead at LEGO Group. “Our product launches across genres were aimed at driving this change in mindset. Through our collaboration with HAQM Ads, we were able to leverage first-party product research and shopping signals corresponding to passion points to reach relevant audiences in a customized manner. The multi-media strategy comprising of programmatic, display, ecommerce, and search ads, enabled coverage of touchpoints across the consumer journey and the results were excellent. With a 7x higher rate of growth versus the category, we witnessed a 53% increase in our market segment share and LEGO became the most engaged with toy brand on HAQM.in.”