Lego has launched a global media review that involves the Australian market and its media agency UM, AdNews can confirm.
The review, first revealed by Adweek, has been tightly controlled from abroad with most major holding groups involved in the US portion.
In this market, media agency groups have not yet been invited to pitch – a sign the process is still in its infancy over here.
One agency that is unlikely to take part is OMD, which has major rival Hasbro on its books. Incumbent UM declined to comment on the review.
The Danish toy company is one of the most sought after media and creative accounts.
UM helped Lego become the star of the 2016 MFA Awards with an outstanding campaign that encouraged families to build Christmas tree stars out of Lego bricks. The campaign won the coveted Grand Prix and two other awards, while Lego picked up the Marketing Team of the Year gong.
Lego Australia has won numerous awards, including Media Campaign of the Year in the 2015 AdNews Agency of the year Awards and three gongs plus the Grand Prix at the 2016 Media Federation of Australia awards.
In April, AdNews revealed that Lego's top marketer Troy Taylor was leaving the post to take up a regional senior management role at the company's Hong Kong office.
Taylor launched the first Australian Lego ad for Christmas 2014 and followed it with giant Christmas trees made of Lego bricks in Sydney and Melbourne as a way to get the bricks into people’s hands and drive excitement around the brand and its products.
Finding Taylor's successor is likely to delay the progress of Lego Australia's agency review.
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