Third-party sellers controlled the price. The official channel had to be worth the difference.
Role
Strategic designer — research, project management, creative
Time
Jul – Aug 2023 · 6 weeks
Team
Creative & strategy & video agency
Context
A Price We Could Not Control
The situation
Third-party stores set their own prices, and discounting old stock clears inventory fast. Every discounted box also moves a customer off the official channel — with the membership, the service and the data behind it.
My role
I joined LEGO’s 2023 818 Play Day campaign with Tmall, timed with Tanabata — China’s Valentine’s Day. Six weeks on the team: research, coordination across creative and strategy, and production with an outside agency.
The problem
A Reason the Discount Cannot Copy
Constraint
Price sat outside our control. Growth had to come from what surrounds the box — the reason to buy it here.
HMWHow might we make the official channel worth choosing, and worth paying more for?
Research
Who Buys the Box, and Who Opens It
Method
Two tracks in parallel: a competitive read of brands that hold their own channel against third-party sellers, and store-floor interviews plus a short survey on how people decide and who they buy for.
Online
Competitive read of brands that keep buyers on their own channel.
In store
Interviews and a short survey with shoppers on the floor.
Insights
The Box Is Rarely for the Person Buying It
What came back
Nearly eight in ten purchases are gifts. That reframes the decision: the buyer is choosing what the gift says about them.
Finding 01
Most LEGO boxes are bought as gifts.
43% buy for a child, 36% for a partner, a friend or a colleague. Gifting is what brings people to the shelf.
Finding 02
The gift-giver is paying for what the gift says.
LEGO sits at a comfortable gifting price, and buyers worry it reads as a safe, impersonal choice. They want the gift to carry something of themselves.
“I am afraid that choosing Lego as a gift is a little less heartfelt.” — Leo, 28, buying for a friend
Finding 03
Loyalty is built on what a discount cannot copy.
Popmart and several beauty brands hold members with exclusive gifts, customised service and holiday events. Identical product, different experience around it.
Gifting to a child · 43%
A parent buying a reward, and the child who plays with it.
Gifting to a friend or partner · 36%
A gift that should feel personal without being expensive.
The idea
The LEGO Play Festival
Noticed
Parents were cutting Ultraman and Paw Patrol clips into birthday messages, and their kids watched them on repeat.
Noticed
Valentine’s gifts arrive wrapped in coloured paper and ribbon — the wrapping is what makes them feel made for one person.
Direction
For the Tanabata window on Tmall, every member who bought a set could record a personalised LEGO blessing video for the person receiving it. The order shipped in a festival gift box sold nowhere else.
01
What research gave us
Nearly 8 in 10 boxes are bought as a gift.
Buyers want the gift to say something of their own.
Loyalty is built on what a discount cannot copy.
02
Two things worth building
Creative
Cost-effective
Highly shareable
Customised blessing video
Festival gift box
Ritual
Better unboxing
Official only
Making it
From Storyboard to Checkout
Production
Six weeks, three internal teams and one agency. Feedback went back in one consolidated round per cut, with a single owner for each decision.
1
01 · Storyboards
Drafted with the creative team, one per gifting scenario from research — e.g. the LEGO City cut below.
2
02 · White-model reviews
Rough cuts reviewed with creative and marketing before render time was spent.
3
03 · What shipped
Members added the giver’s and the receiver’s names on the customisation page, free with the purchase. The film rendered with those names in under 30 seconds.
Play with sound
To a girlfriend
Play with sound
To a boyfriend
Play with sound
To friends and children
On Tmall
Customise, download and share inside the purchase flow — with the festival gift box on the same page.
Results
20×+ new members
Sign-ups during the campaign, against a normal week
Before
100 – 120
boxes a day
$15 – 20k
daily GMV
During the festival
210 – 300
boxes a day
$30 – 40k
daily GMV
Reflection
A price war is won somewhere else.
Price was never ours to move, so we worked on the reason to buy. Once the research showed that most boxes leave the store as gifts, the official channel had something a discount cannot reproduce: what the gift says about the person giving it. Writing the romantic script in neutral words was a small call with a long reach — one production served every couple.
Beyond the campaign
Other Work
At LEGO
I also wrote for the strategy side of the team: the Double 11 campaign deck, a quarterly competitive analysis with the direction it pointed to, and a weekly market newsletter that went out to the whole company.
Outside work
LEGO is something I keep coming back to outside work, so it has ended up as the subject of a couple of my own case studies.
Third-party sellers controlled the price. The official channel had to be worth the difference.
Role
Strategic designer — research, project management, creative
Time
Jul – Aug 2023 · 6 weeks
Team
Creative & strategy & video agency
Context
A Price We Could Not Control
The situation
Third-party stores set their own prices, and discounting old stock clears inventory fast. Every discounted box also moves a customer off the official channel — with the membership, the service and the data behind it.
My role
I joined LEGO’s 2023 818 Play Day campaign with Tmall, timed with Tanabata — China’s Valentine’s Day. Six weeks on the team: research, coordination across creative and strategy, and production with an outside agency.
The problem
A Reason the Discount Cannot Copy
Constraint
Price sat outside our control. Growth had to come from what surrounds the box — the reason to buy it here.
HMWHow might we make the official channel worth choosing, and worth paying more for?
Research
Who Buys the Box, and Who Opens It
Method
Two tracks in parallel: a competitive read of brands that hold their own channel against third-party sellers, and store-floor interviews plus a short survey on how people decide and who they buy for.
Online
Competitive read of brands that keep buyers on their own channel.
In store
Interviews and a short survey with shoppers on the floor.
Insights
The Box Is Rarely for the Person Buying It
What came back
Nearly eight in ten purchases are gifts. That reframes the decision: the buyer is choosing what the gift says about them.
Finding 01
Most LEGO boxes are bought as gifts.
43% buy for a child, 36% for a partner, a friend or a colleague. Gifting is what brings people to the shelf.
Finding 02
The gift-giver is paying for what the gift says.
LEGO sits at a comfortable gifting price, and buyers worry it reads as a safe, impersonal choice. They want the gift to carry something of themselves.
“I am afraid that choosing Lego as a gift is a little less heartfelt.” — Leo, 28, buying for a friend
Finding 03
Loyalty is built on what a discount cannot copy.
Popmart and several beauty brands hold members with exclusive gifts, customised service and holiday events. Identical product, different experience around it.
Gifting to a child · 43%
A parent buying a reward, and the child who plays with it.
Gifting to a friend or partner · 36%
A gift that should feel personal without being expensive.
The idea
The LEGO Play Festival
Noticed
Parents were cutting Ultraman and Paw Patrol clips into birthday messages, and their kids watched them on repeat.
Noticed
Valentine’s gifts arrive wrapped in coloured paper and ribbon — the wrapping is what makes them feel made for one person.
Direction
For the Tanabata window on Tmall, every member who bought a set could record a personalised LEGO blessing video for the person receiving it. The order shipped in a festival gift box sold nowhere else.
01
What research gave us
Nearly 8 in 10 boxes are bought as a gift.
Buyers want the gift to say something of their own.
Loyalty is built on what a discount cannot copy.
02
Two things worth building
Creative
Cost-effective
Highly shareable
Customised blessing video
Festival gift box
Ritual
Better unboxing
Official only
Making it
From Storyboard to Checkout
Production
Six weeks, three internal teams and one agency. Feedback went back in one consolidated round per cut, with a single owner for each decision.
1
01 · Storyboards
Drafted with the creative team, one per gifting scenario from research — e.g. the LEGO City cut below.
2
02 · White-model reviews
Rough cuts reviewed with creative and marketing before render time was spent.
3
03 · What shipped
Members added the giver’s and the receiver’s names on the customisation page, free with the purchase. The film rendered with those names in under 30 seconds.
Play with sound
To a girlfriend
Play with sound
To a boyfriend
Play with sound
To friends and children
On Tmall
Customise, download and share inside the purchase flow — with the festival gift box on the same page.
Results
20×+ new members
Sign-ups during the campaign, against a normal week
Before
100 – 120
boxes a day
$15 – 20k
daily GMV
During the festival
210 – 300
boxes a day
$30 – 40k
daily GMV
Reflection
A price war is won somewhere else.
Price was never ours to move, so we worked on the reason to buy. Once the research showed that most boxes leave the store as gifts, the official channel had something a discount cannot reproduce: what the gift says about the person giving it. Writing the romantic script in neutral words was a small call with a long reach — one production served every couple.
Beyond the campaign
Other Work
At LEGO
I also wrote for the strategy side of the team: the Double 11 campaign deck, a quarterly competitive analysis with the direction it pointed to, and a weekly market newsletter that went out to the whole company.
Outside work
LEGO is something I keep coming back to outside work, so it has ended up as the subject of a couple of my own case studies.
Third-party sellers controlled the price. The official channel had to be worth the difference.
Role
Strategic designer — research, project management, creative
Time
Jul – Aug 2023 · 6 weeks
Team
Creative & strategy & video agency
Context
A Price We Could Not Control
The situation
Third-party stores set their own prices, and discounting old stock clears inventory fast. Every discounted box also moves a customer off the official channel — with the membership, the service and the data behind it.
My role
I joined LEGO’s 2023 818 Play Day campaign with Tmall, timed with Tanabata — China’s Valentine’s Day. Six weeks on the team: research, coordination across creative and strategy, and production with an outside agency.
The problem
A Reason the Discount Cannot Copy
Constraint
Price sat outside our control. Growth had to come from what surrounds the box — the reason to buy it here.
HMWHow might we make the official channel worth choosing, and worth paying more for?
Research
Who Buys the Box, and Who Opens It
Method
Two tracks in parallel: a competitive read of brands that hold their own channel against third-party sellers, and store-floor interviews plus a short survey on how people decide and who they buy for.
Online
Competitive read of brands that keep buyers on their own channel.
In store
Interviews and a short survey with shoppers on the floor.
Insights
The Box Is Rarely for the Person Buying It
What came back
Nearly eight in ten purchases are gifts. That reframes the decision: the buyer is choosing what the gift says about them.
Finding 01
Most LEGO boxes are bought as gifts.
43% buy for a child, 36% for a partner, a friend or a colleague. Gifting is what brings people to the shelf.
Finding 02
The gift-giver is paying for what the gift says.
LEGO sits at a comfortable gifting price, and buyers worry it reads as a safe, impersonal choice. They want the gift to carry something of themselves.
“I am afraid that choosing Lego as a gift is a little less heartfelt.” — Leo, 28, buying for a friend
Finding 03
Loyalty is built on what a discount cannot copy.
Popmart and several beauty brands hold members with exclusive gifts, customised service and holiday events. Identical product, different experience around it.
Gifting to a child · 43%
A parent buying a reward, and the child who plays with it.
Gifting to a friend or partner · 36%
A gift that should feel personal without being expensive.
The idea
The LEGO Play Festival
Noticed
Parents were cutting Ultraman and Paw Patrol clips into birthday messages, and their kids watched them on repeat.
Noticed
Valentine’s gifts arrive wrapped in coloured paper and ribbon — the wrapping is what makes them feel made for one person.
Direction
For the Tanabata window on Tmall, every member who bought a set could record a personalised LEGO blessing video for the person receiving it. The order shipped in a festival gift box sold nowhere else.
01
What research gave us
Nearly 8 in 10 boxes are bought as a gift.
Buyers want the gift to say something of their own.
Loyalty is built on what a discount cannot copy.
02
Two things worth building
Creative
Cost-effective
Highly shareable
Customised blessing video
Festival gift box
Ritual
Better unboxing
Official only
Making it
From Storyboard to Checkout
Production
Six weeks, three internal teams and one agency. Feedback went back in one consolidated round per cut, with a single owner for each decision.
1
01 · Storyboards
Drafted with the creative team, one per gifting scenario from research — e.g. the LEGO City cut below.
2
02 · White-model reviews
Rough cuts reviewed with creative and marketing before render time was spent.
3
03 · What shipped
Members added the giver’s and the receiver’s names on the customisation page, free with the purchase. The film rendered with those names in under 30 seconds.
Play with sound
To a girlfriend
Play with sound
To a boyfriend
Play with sound
To friends and children
On Tmall
Customise, download and share inside the purchase flow — with the festival gift box on the same page.
Results
20×+ new members
Sign-ups during the campaign, against a normal week
Before
100 – 120
boxes a day
$15 – 20k
daily GMV
During the festival
210 – 300
boxes a day
$30 – 40k
daily GMV
Reflection
A price war is won somewhere else.
Price was never ours to move, so we worked on the reason to buy. Once the research showed that most boxes leave the store as gifts, the official channel had something a discount cannot reproduce: what the gift says about the person giving it. Writing the romantic script in neutral words was a small call with a long reach — one production served every couple.
Beyond the campaign
Other Work
At LEGO
I also wrote for the strategy side of the team: the Double 11 campaign deck, a quarterly competitive analysis with the direction it pointed to, and a weekly market newsletter that went out to the whole company.
Outside work
LEGO is something I keep coming back to outside work, so it has ended up as the subject of a couple of my own case studies.