The campaign that became an obsession

If the Sainsbury’s Lego card campaign was half as successful in your neighbourhood as it was in mine, then hats off to the creative team who conceived it.

I came to it midway through, introduced by my daughter who arrived home one day with a couple of cards given to her by school friends. Curious to find out more, I started shopping at Sainsbury’s.

And it was there, in Sainsbury’s, that something odd happened. Shoppers began giving my daughter the packs of cards they were given with their shopping. People who’d previously ignored each other began interacting. The cards were bringing people together, and, as trivial as that may seem to some, it felt good to be on the receiving end of their kindness.

Those working on brand awareness take note. This is what a card collection and the desire to complete it will do to people. You cannot underestimate the power of something so simple in being so effective.

When you're banned by the school, you know your campaign has reached a certain level of notoriety.

The cards and books to house them in, which cost ￡2 a pop in store, were bright and extremely well designed. Educational and fun, too. Packed with imagination. The cards were highly desirable items, and this soon became obvious in conversation with other parents when they revealed how they were now treating Sainsbury’s as their local corner shop and deliberately detouring out of their way just to spend ￡10 on bits and bobs so they could be given a pack of cards.

Gradually, as well as the shoppers and my daughter’s friends through swaps, my colleagues, friends and family members also became a source for cards. It seemed almost everyone in our sphere had become an agent working to complete this collection. Such is how these things spread.

 Inevitably, the school banned the cards; they were disrupting learning, and when something like that happens you know your campaign has reached a certain level of notoriety and there are going to be some people casting it as a phenomenon.

One minute the school banned the cards, the next it was using the very same outlawed cards as one of the star attractions of its weekend event.

The ban and its subsequent effect on the swapping market would put a dent in our ability to come by the cards we needed without spending a mini-fortune at Sainsbury’s. Perhaps feeling guilty, the school did its bit at the summer fete, with a stand dedicated to hooking kids up to the cards they needed. One minute the school banned the cards, and the next it was using the very same outlawed cards as one of the star attractions of its weekend event.

There was even an additional after-school meeting for the sole purpose of uniting kids with their missing cards. Social media was beginning to creak under the weight of messages from frantic parents saying “no, got, got, um, let me check, yes, need that one, got, got, got, need…” The campaign had become an obsession.

It’s now a little over a month since Sainsbury’s issued its last pack of cards. Parents, not all, but most, still talk about it. Some are near desperate for the one or two cards necessary to avoid an incomplete collection. Others say “No, I don’t have that one, but you can have our swaps if you like. We have about 500.”

It was only yesterday my daughter completed her collection with the last card she needed, which by weird coincidence was 140, the very last card in the book.

It will be interesting to see how the campaign translates to sales. More its effect on Sainsbury’s sales than perhaps Lego’s, although canny marketers at Lego recently attracted some 200 kids and parents from our school to a cut-price INSET day at LEGOLAND. You’d assume Sainsbury’s must have profited from the extra footfall and the spending that brought, but the challenge and hard work now is going to be in retaining some of those new shoppers like me. Lego had its product placed front and centre. And everyone seemed to be talking about Sainsbury’s Lego cards.

Sure, the cards and book look expensive to produce, but the financial outlay between Sainsbury’s and Lego, and who paid who, and how much, and who bore the brunt of the production cost, is immaterial. There is always a chance the final outcome did not warrant such spending, but as a brand awareness raiser – and for two companies and not one – in my opinion the campaign was an unqualified success, and one of the most stylishly executed consumer marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen. Was it the same where you live?