Shell links with Lego for global marketing drive

Shell is launching a global sales promotion and advertising campaign with Lego next year as part of a new policy to exploit the brand values of other brands.

The promotion is on test in Australia this month and will be rolled out globally next year.

Next year’s promotion with Lego involves the use of ten exclusive small box toys and a big Ferrari Lego car carrying a Shell logo. Shell plans to shift between 20 and 40 million units of Lego globally. It will make Shell one of the world’s largest toy distributors.

Lego will partly fund the ad campaign, which will include core global ads adapted to local markets.

This will be Shell’s second global sales promotion. It follows the launch of the 50m Ferrari promotion, which launches this year in Japan during the Japanese Grand Prix and is scheduled for launch in the UK next year. The initiative will be backed by two ads developed by Ogilvy & Mather and J Walter Thompson.

O&M shot the ad called “Journey”, which will support Shell’s lubricant products. One treatment includes the line: “Only one oil contains all the experience, all the knowledge, all the protection, all the passion that comes from racing a Ferrari: Shell Helix.” The other finishes with the endline: “Only one oil has Ferrari in it.”

The other ad called “Refuelling”, by JWT, involves a Shell plane re-fuelling a Ferrari racing car as it speeds along a track in the desert. It features a refuelling line stretching from the plane to the car, which acts as a metaphor for the link between the companies.

Both executions support Shell’s first truly global sales promotion programme, which is expected to reach 1 billion people in over 100 countries.

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