Quest to LEGOLAND
LEGOLAND Florida Resort
Issue 45 | December 2017
Agency
VML New York
Creative Team
Global Chief Creative Officer Debbi Vandeven North American Chief Creative Officer Mike Wente Associate Creative Director Laurie Hollar Creative Director Harsh Kapadia Senior Copywriter Justine Cotter Senior Art Directors Raihana Halim, Everett Ching Art Director Edi Loyola
Production Team
Managing Director, Creative Technology Craig Elimeliah Producer Cynthia Lin Production Company MediaMonks Creative Partner The ZOO at Google USA
Other Credits
Group Director, Client Engagement Becka Vigorito Supervisor, Client Engagement Julia Mooradian Technical Director Josh Wolf Business Affairs Manager Cindy Morales Planner Sanya Deshpande Data Analytics Peter Chobanian Clients VP Marketing and Sales, LEGOLAND Florida Rex Jackson Head of Marketing, LEGOLAND Florida Audrey Padgett
Date
February 2017
Background
In America, when it came to family vacations, parents preferred road travel because it gave them more control and quality time as a family. But after a short time in a packed car, the trip almost always became all about "Are we there yet?"
Idea
GPS was reinvented and a GPS made specially for kids.
The moment a family left home for LEGOLAND, the GPS in the vehicle and/ or in their mobile phones transformed the journey into a LEGO-themed adventure all the way to the LEGOLAND resort in Florida.
Kids chose from a pirate/adventure/ kingdom/beach theme and followed a LEGO mini-figure all the way to Florida.
The app experience was mapped in real-time using Google maps so that as parents drove, interesting places, landmarks and notes about the natural world popped up on the screens along with relevant trivia and facts.
Details of over 5,000 landmarks with thousands more pieces of contextual information were entwined into 40 games. As kids shared their discoveries with their parents, so the trip became an interactive and educational experience for the whole family.
Results
The experience turned "Are we there yet?" into "Can we go again?"
In the first 30 days after launch, the app recorded over 39,000 miles of car travel, or 639 hours of family fun.
The app was projected to achieve 156,000 miles and 2,500 hours of play by the end of the summer holidays. Average time spent in-app was just under 10 minutes, which suggested that many kids opened the app and kept it open.
Our Thoughts
When Google Maps were first made available, they were meant to be useful and usable. Which they were and still are. But delightful? No-one imagined some of the amazing things you can do with Maps right now. Such as click into Street View and see what the landmarks look like in 3D. You can jump from there to Satellite View and suddenly you're Peter Pan, flying around the world. Once you're back, you can see how those street scenes looked like in yesteryear with a simple click. You're a space traveller or a time traveller as well.
Harnessing all this magic with the help of Google's ZOO team has allowed LEGO to turn kids into masters of the universe from the back seat of the Volvo. Delightful!