MANILA – The Park Triangle in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) became Lego heaven this Tuesday, now home to the Philippines’ first Lego Certified Store.
The store is located in the same building where Kidzania is – a likely choice for the store to effectively target kids who will flock to the role-play indoor theme park set to open later this year.
But judging by the the long line outside the store, Lego’s fanbase in the country are curiously older, partly because they are the ones that can afford buying these brick sets. The other half, according to Camille Bottke, Route to Market (RTM) senior business manger for the Lego Group, is strong nostalgia.
“I think a lot of adults have fond memories of the brand. We now some people go mountain biking, some people build Lego, saying that it is as meditative as some other activities. Our global community is huge and the best thing about Lego is that it is for all ages,” she said.
Sharing with adobo, the launch of the official store in the country is part of a global rollout that started in Jakarta last year. Details on how many such stores will be built by year-end were not disclosed.
On why Lego decided to launch their own designed stores, Bottke (pictured left) explains:
“We have a lot of partners globally selling the Lego products and we refer to them as monobrand stores. But we cannot always control the look and feel of the stores. That’s why we went into setting up official ones, to guarantee the same experience everywhere for our customers.
While the Lego store in BGC was designed by the Danish brand, its not owned by The LEGO Group or LEGO Singapore but managed and operated by a third party under an agreement – a task taken by LAJ Marketing, the company behind BricksPhilippines, named as exclusive distributor of Lego products in the country.
Bottke mentioned that a TVC and other campaigns are in the pipeline but didn’t mentioned if it will be done in-house or with a partner agency.
To better resonate with Filipinos, Lego launched a two-pronged advocacy together with World Vision during the launch which aims to raise a total of P500,000 to rebuild classrooms in Malabon.
Called the #BrickstoClassrooms campaign, the company has pledged to donate all the proceeds it will get from selling 5,000 pieces of the 30302 Spider-Man Glider v29 at only P50.00 apiece.
Supporting this is a challenging Instagram campaign inviting Filipinos to send selfies of them and their masterpiece made up of only 20 Lego bricks that describes education. For every entry submitted, Lego will be donating P100 to World Vision.
“It is a toy but it can be a medium for creative expression and even a means to help people. We are actually working with design and architecture schools globally to inspire. I remember the advertising industry to be avid creators, turning them into art even. The possibilities and limitless, really,” Bottke said
