Legoland creates most effective TV ad of April

Legoland is a place for families to enjoy, so having consumers enjoy its advertising is also crucial. The brand, which is owned by Merlin Entertainments, launched a TV campaign that uses fun, bright imagery and distinctive brand assets from Lego to generate long- and short-term returns.

The ‘Where imaginations build and build’ ad tops Kantar’s ‘The Works’ study, which assesses the effectiveness of ads among the public.

Produced in association with Marketing Week and the Advertising Association’s Trust Working Group, each month the study assesses effectiveness by asking 750 consumers what they think of five top ads – for April it was TV ads – 150 consumers per advert. The study also tracks the facial expressions and eye movements of those viewing the ads.

The Legoland ad follows a child’s journey in on of its park as he explores various rides and amusements with his family. It is the first phase of a wider campaign by Legoland “to put the land back in Legoland” and build a platform centred around children’s imagination.

Legoland leans on its distinct assets in this ad, with the unmistakable Lego blocks and figures appearing at various points, as well as the logos on amusements in the park.

This makes the ad extremely distinct and helps the brand stand out from the crowd, Kantar’s research finds, as it can claim “uniqueness” in the top 100 percentile of all UK ads.

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“This ad could have just shown a family or families enjoying Legoland resort, but instead the story brings the experience of enjoying Legoland to life in a way that is authentic to the values of the brand. It’s highly creative, imaginative, fun and exciting,” Kantar UK’s head of creative excellence, Lynne Deason tells Marketing Week.

The branding throughout the ad is extremely strong, placing it in the top 3% of all UK ads. Across different branding measures – brand cues, brand focus and brand fit – Legoland’s ad is at least in the top 3% of UK ads.

Deason states this is “an incredibly efficient ad that will punch well above its weight”. Effective ads like this see the spend behind them amplified versus the average ad.

Kantar used facial tracking to assess how the public’s initial emotional reaction unfolded during the 60-second TV ad. It captured moments of surprise, sentimentality and smiles as the advert unfolded, depicting the child’s adventure.

“Music plays a key role in the ad, adding to the sense of adventure,” Deason notes, suggesting this helps the ad be rated in the top third of UK ads for enjoyment.

Kantar also looks at the public’s intuitive response to adverts, using a speed of response technique in Link+, since most people outside the marketing industry don’t tend to think about ads too deeply.

Kantar found people are likely to take away feelings of excitement, fun, creativity and imagination intuitively having watched the ad, meaning Where imaginations build and build does a good job of conveying its crucial messages without having to blatantly spell it out, Kantar suggests.

Crucially, this advert is also an example of one which delivers both strong long-term and short-term returns. It scores in the top 2% for the former and top 8% for the latter.

It is perhaps little wonder then the response to ad has been “hugely positive”, according to Kantar, rating “phenomenally strong” across all the effectiveness measures looked at in The Works study.