Mobile case study: Quest to Legoland turns car journey into adventure for kids

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In the summer of 2016, Legoland launched a location-based GPS adventure for kids to keep the whole car happy on road trips to the theme park in Florida.


Quest to LEGOLAND: Case Study "Storytelling" from EVERETT CHING on Vimeo.


Case study summary

• Legoland USA wanted to amplify experience of theme park visit with a mobile game

• Map-based experience tracks users journey- creating adventure and milestones on route to theme park

• Campaign won a Cannes Lions Mobile award in 2017

The challenge

When it comes to family vacations, parents prefer road travel because it gives them more control and quality time as a family. But after a short time in a packed car, the trip becomes all about "Are we there yet?"

The solution

Developed by VML New York and MediaMonks in conjunction with Google, "Quest to Legoland" aims to transform families' drive to the resort into a Lego-themed ride. Kids can follow Lego minifigures like Captain Brickbeard and the Good Knight on themed routes mapped in real-time using GPS.

Along the way, they unlock themed missions, answer geographical trivia, and see information about landmarks they pass on the journey. It might even make you want to take the scenic route.

Intended for children ages 7 to 13, users enter their departure date and departure place within the map-based experience and choose a Legoland Minifigure theme for their journey, such as Pirate, Kingdom, Adventure or Beach.


What players see in the app depends on the route they take to the Florida resort. For instance, on a trip from Knoxville, Tennessee, details pop up about the towns the player drives through, such as, “This city’s nickname is ‘The City of Oaks,’” in Raleigh, North Carolina and, “Once the home of the famous pirate Blackbeard,” in Bath, North Carolina. It also highlights points of interest like the North Carolina State Capitol.

The results

"Instead of the traditional step-by-step navigation made to assist and reassure adults, this GPS was designed so that kids can see exactly where they are in relation to LEGOLAND, and learn about a ton of stuff along the way," said Craig Elimeliah, managing director for creative technology at VML. The app is preprogrammed with thousands of landmarks kids can track as they pass by and trivia customized to any route to Legoland.

The experience also yielded valuable data for Legoland.

“From a marketing perspective, we are interested in seeing how this mechanism could play into a possible CRM role for the brand, so understanding consumer behavior on the way to a destination – how they’re feeling…when they’re arriving, how to surprise and delight them upon arrival,” Elimeliah said. “Knowing who is using the app and where they’re coming from is not really explored as much in terms of the theme park space…and we feel like this is a product that will stand out. We anticipate copycats, but we feel good about being one of the first out of the gate to look at geolocation and augmented reality and we were able to create something truly for kids [that is] educational as well as utility-based.”

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