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Lego's brand partnership with Shell is ill-judged, argues Katie Collins

Greenpeace has created a parody video entitled Everything is NOT awesome as part of a campaign to bring to an end Lego's brand partnership with oil company Shell.


Put together by London creative agency Don't Panic, the video depicts Lego minifigs, including Father Christmas, huskies and polar bears drowning in oil with a maudlin version of Everything is Awesome from The Lego Movie soundtrack as backing music.

As you might imagine, it's pretty dark, but it's also very effective. "We love Lego. You love Lego. Everyone loves Lego," the video caption states. "But when Lego's halo effect is being used to sell propaganda to children, especially by an unethical corporation who are busy destroying the natural world our children will inherit, we have to do something. "Children's imaginations are an unspoilt wilderness. Help us stop Shell polluting them by telling Lego to stop selling Shell-branded bricks and kits today."

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A link underneath takes you to a petition encouraging Lego to "dump Shell".

Greenpeace/Screenshot


Lego has already responded to the video with a statement, which

you can read in full here. In it, Lego president and CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp says: "The Greenpeace campaign focuses on how Shell operates in a specific part of the world. We firmly believe that this matter must be handled between Shell and Greenpeace. We are saddened when the Lego brand is used as a tool in any dispute between organisations. "We expect that Shell lives up to their responsibilities wherever they operate and take appropriate action to any potential claims should this not be the case. I would like to clarify that we intend to live up to the long term contract with Shell, which we entered into in 2011."

Way to pass the buck, Lego. It's true that Greenpeace already has beef with Shell and that the Save the Arctic campaign is not necessarily Lego's battle to fight, but highlighting the inappropriateness of the partnership seems fair. After all, a company is known by the company it keeps with other companies, and Lego's motto, as Jørgen Vig Knudstorp points out in his statement, is "only the best is good enough". If that is true of the product, why is it not also true of Lego's partnerships?

Greenpeace's argument is a powerful one: Lego has built its reputation on making the world a better place for children, and its partnership with Shell doesn't resonate with that. The partnership doesn't even make sense in light of Lego's commitment to creating "the best" play experiences -- it's been a while since I was a child, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have particularly wanted Shell branding on my bricks or minifigs. "We are determined to leave a positive impact on society and the planet that children will inherit," writes Jørgen Vig Knudstorp. If anything, this implies that Lego is the kind of company that would actively support the preservation of polar bears, rather than signing a contract with a company operating within an industry that may eventually contribute to their demise.


Children's brands have a responsibility when it comes to choosing partners, because these partnerships serve as direct endorsements of certain types of behaviour, whether this is behaviour exhibited by an individual, a group of individuals or a company. I'm an adult and I'm getting mixed messages from Lego, so goodness knows what subliminal ideas this is implanting in the minds of kids.

Shell and Lego were in cahoots between the 1960s and 90s and then rekindled their relationship in 2011. For Shell, the partnership serves as a promotion exercise -- it is piggybacking on Lego's wholesome, family-friendly image and infiltrating the imaginations of future generations of adults at the same time. No wonder it is delighted with the results.

Without doubt the Shell contract is lucrative for Lego, for the company's current CEO is nothing if not a financially savvy individual. He struck up partnerships with all sorts of brands, from Warner Bros. and Disney to Shell. In doing this he turned the company around, and Lego is now pulling in profits when it was previously making a loss. But at what cost?