Auto Trader UK Builds Consumer Excitement Using Legos As The Driver

Brand lets con­sumers request Lego ver­sions of their auto­mo­biles using the #dri­ven­byme hash­tag.

Danny Goodwin By Danny Goodwin from Momentology. Join the discussion » 0 comments

In a cam­paign that lever­ages mul­ti­ple social media pro­files, aims to engage hun­dreds of thou­sands of tar­get con­sumers, and weaves in the pop cul­ture icon Lego, Auto Trad­er UK’s lat­est mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tive for the hash­tag #dri­ven­byme is delight­ing users and invok­ing nos­tal­gia.


Spring­board­ing off the icon­ic brand Lego and its mass appeal, Auto Trad­er UK is mak­ing great use of its approx­i­mate 200,000 fol­low­ers on Twit­ter, Face­book and Insta­gram in a cam­paign that trans­forms a hand­ful of tar­get con­sumers’ cars into their toy-sized Lego coun­ter­parts.

The cam­paign, which launched on Decem­ber 8 and runs through Decem­ber 12, col­lects requests from con­sumers on social media via the hash­tag “#dri­ven­byme” for Lego ver­sions of their auto­mo­biles, and one selec­tion per day will man­u­fac­ture a tiny Lego vehi­cle for a total five Lego cars cre­at­ed in this cam­paign.

At the time of writ­ing, one entry had already been cho­sen, and the images of the Lego car – an Austin Sev­en Mini repli­ca­tion – are fea­tured on the Auto Trad­er UK pro­file on Twit­ter:

The “build” video is fea­tured on Auto Trad­er UK’s Insta­gram, and you can even see how excit­ed the con­sumer (Ethan) who request­ed the Austin Mini is. Tak­ing advan­tage of all social pro­files, Auto Trad­er UK fea­tured the build video on Face­book as well.

It isn’t the first time the social hash­tag #dri­ven­byme has been used by the Auto Trad­er UK. In fact, in a cam­paign pre­vi­ous to this one, the brand asked con­sumers to share their favorite dri­ving songs using the same hash­tag.

So far, the cam­paign seems to be met with enthu­si­asm, as con­sumers engage with the idea by lik­ing and shar­ing updates, and most impor­tant­ly, request­ing their favorite car be immor­tal­ized in the beloved Lego build­ing blocks.

Lego and cars have a lot in com­mon,” said Mark Mal­one, MD at Krowd, which is respon­si­ble for the Lego cam­paign. “Every­one’s first dis­cov­ery, the pride in that first com­plet­ed project. The same excite­ment for that first set at Christ­mas or the keys on your 18th birth­day. While many cars roll off the line gener­ic, straight out the box, we all cus­tomize them in our own lit­tle ways, leav­ing our own stamp and mak­ing them ours. Offer­ing peo­ple the chance to have their pride and joy immor­tal­ized in their first child­hood love is beau­ti­ful. Lego and Auto Trad­er just fit.”


Have you seen oth­er ways that brands have cre­ative­ly tied mar­ket­ing to pop cul­ture? Tell us about it!

Danny Goodwin

Written by Danny Goodwin

Managing Editor, Momentology

Danny Goodwin is the former Managing Editor of Momentology. Previously, he was the editor of Search Engine Watch, where he was in charge of editing, content strategy, and writing about search industry news.

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