Brand Building, Brick by Brick

Imagine showing up to a brand building workshop to discover a room full of legos.

Summer, 2023. The outskirts of San Diego, California. A dolly is requested from the front desk in order to transport several meticulously organized boxes of Legos to the 2nd floor conference room of a mid-size Pharmaceutical company. The productive and passionate play that ensued over the next three hours will go down in strategic workshop lore for quarters to come.

In the (often bland) world of brand strategy workshops, sometimes the most effective solutions come from unexpected places, or unexpected people forcing you to use unexpected materials. Tasked with building a shared identity for a new department within a Pharma company, we decided to take a unique approach by incorporating Lego bricks into the process. The results were engaging and fun, but also yielded valuable insights into how we can construct strong, cohesive brand identities. We divided participants into four teams of builders and guided them through a series of Lego-based challenges designed to explore brand values, skills, and the expression of their new brand. We also reminded participants not to drop any Legos because we spend way too much of our non-work hours picking up our kids Legos and it’s just not fair to make people do that at work and at home, okay?

Building A Bridge

The first challenge, "Bridge Building," asked teams to construct a Lego bridge connecting the brand’s past to its future. This exercise encouraged participants to reflect on their brand's history and envision how it could evolve. Could their bridge hold the weight of the organization as it evolves? What did they need to plan for in terms of successful transportation from their past identity into the future?

The Brand House

The second challenge set builders to work constructing a metaphorical house using the top five values for which their brand should stand. By prioritizing and physically manifesting these values, we gained clarity on the core pillars of their brand, and watched as four unique houses took shape. What values would they choose, and why?

Crafting Brand Character

In the third challenge, "Guardians," teams selected from Lego minifig superheroes that best represented the brand’s collective superpowers. This imaginative ask allowed us to identify and celebrate the unique strengths and skills that set their brand apart within the broader organization. Strategic Supermen and Superwomen were forged with strength of Thor’s hammer. And no one lost their cool like the Hulk (which was a bonus).

Awesome Awaits!

Finally, the "Billboard" challenge tasked teams with developing a concise, impactful expression to advertise their new brand identity to the rest of the organization. By distilling their brand offering into a short phrase, we crafted memorable taglines that encapsulated their essence. Each team was left with a miniature brand world on their tables, filled with a tremendous sense of accomplishment and a few sore fingers from having to take apart legos over and over again.

Playing with Purpose

The use of Lego bricks provided a tactile, interactive way to explore abstract concepts. The colorful blocks served as a universal language, enabling participants from diverse backgrounds to contribute equally. The hands-on nature of the challenges fostered collaboration, creativity, and a sense of shared ownership in the brand-building process.

By physically constructing representations of the brand, we gained a deeper understanding of its foundation and structure. The limitations of using Lego bricks and characters forced participants to simplify complex ideas and focus on the essential elements of their brand. The playful, interactive format created an environment where participants felt more open to sharing ideas and taking creative risks.

Our Lego-based brand strategy workshop proved to be a highly effective and engaging approach to building a strong, unified brand identity. Combining strategic thinking with hands-on, creative problem-solving, we were able to define brand values, skills, and expression in a memorable and impactful way. We made crafting strategy fun, in a way that clicked with our audience. Because after all, that’s what Lego is meant to do, inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.