Shortlisted 2022
Social Good
Brand
LEGO
Entered by:
Red Border by TIME
Credits:
Initiative, LEGO
'Girls Are Ready'
Why?
The UN reports that around the globe, fewer than 15% of those graduating from science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs are women. Even when girls do get the education required for an increasingly digital workplace, they don’t always get available jobs.
TIME Kid of the Year 2021 Gitanjali Rao spoke to TIME about her astonishing work using technology to tackle issues ranging from contaminated drinking water to opioid addiction and cyberbullying, and about her mission to create a global community of young innovators to solve problems the world over.
She wrote
“I don’t look like your typical scientist. Everything I see on TV is that it’s an older, usually white man as a scientist. My goal has really shifted not only from creating my own devices to solve the world’s problems, but inspiring others to do the same….”
TIME with Lego recognised that The International Day of the Girl delivers a platform that strives to address challenges that girls may face and it gives us an opportunity to amplify their voices.
After launching a global study, LEGO found that only 50% of parents encourage their daughters to play with LEGOs to that of their sons. This ‘insight’ became the jumping off point for the partnership between TIME and LEGO. TIME is recognised for highlighting notable voices and LEGO for inspiring creativity, it is this combination that enabled a partnership to showcase that creativity and can empower young girls to change the world just like Gitanjali.
In honor of International Day of the Girl and as a tribute to young girls all over the world, TIME partnered with LEGO and a LEGO artist to rebuild its most iconic female covers in LEGOs to give hope and inspiration to children of all ages who are building better lives, brick by brick.
The Content Solution
Recreated ‘Inspirational Women’ TIME covers built in LEGO’s digitally driven across our most ‘visually’ owned social channels including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The social content drove additional articles and features on TIME.com to ensure audiences could learn more about LEGO’s commitment to the International Day of the Girl and more broadly encouraging girls into STEM educations and professions, instilling a creative atmosphere for all children.
The Media/Content Amplification Solution
We partnered with the LEGO® Group to celebrate International Day of the Girl by creating LEGO brick versions of TIME covers. TIME selected girl icons who embody change and make a direct impact on a global scale. The strategy was to take the recognizable TIME cover of the girls and “LEGO-ize” each of them – with distribution across Meta and Twitter which proved to be the best options for engagement and reach.
TIME’s social channels not only deliver the highly visual environment required for recreated covers to deliver impact they also account for 50m+ followers
Social & Search now account for over 60% of TIME’s referred digital traffic making utilization of these channels essential to engaging broad audiences and discovery
Creation digital LEGO assets allowed the talent engaged to utilize their own social channels to drive awareness of the partnership and their participation creating additional reach outside TIME and LEGO O&E
Targeting was critical as we wanted to encourage and inform parents, teachers, community leaders about these girls and spotlight their impact. The campaign featured four iconic girls, their mission, and highlighted their courage and determination to build a better world.
Featured Young Women
• Chelsea Phaire
• Amanda Gorman
• Gitanjali Rao
• Britt Bennet
To tell a holistic story of change and transformation, we developed carousel posts that included the original cover, LEGO brick version, and magnified version of the LEGO brick to see the texture of the cover. This held space for the girls to tell their story and show how they “built” momentum behind their causes – reinstating the message of girl leaders building the future.
The Result
The campaign was a hit. The posts guartnered earned engagement from the individual women like Gitanjali Rao (35K followers) and Amanda Gorman (3.8m followers), but also from business leaders and influential people around the world. Comments included “OMG I absolutely love this. I mean. Lego. And Time.” “Her poem at inauguration was just so moving. I’m glad she was selected for the cover.” “Awesome to see Lego focusing on the good in the world we live in.”
The campaign received an 88.4% positive sentiment with many people wanting to buy packs to create their own covers. Impressions were 73% over goal. The LEGO team was thrilled with the results but more importantly we were able to create a marriage between two iconic brands that focus on building a better future that needs creative women.