From Aisle to App, Blending Play, Brand & Purchase

 

LEGO® wanted to do more than sell boxes in-store, they wanted to turn retail browsing into a richer, more engaging brand experience. The challenge? How to bring the magic of LEGO’s creativity into the retail aisle using digital, without interrupting or overwhelming the experience.

Reframing the Opportunity: Turning Retail into Real-Time Engagement

LEGO® spans generations, but in-store engagement often stopped at the shelf. Families and fans shopping outside LEGO® Stores were under-served, and the potential for digitally-enabled retail moments remained largely untapped.

This wasn’t just about building an app, it was about transforming physical retail into a digital engagement zone that deepens brand affinity, drives real-time purchase intent, and enhances product discovery. Most importantly, it delivers meaningful value to audiences at scale.

Strategic Moves: Enhancing the Retail Journey with Functional Value

  • In-Store Discovery Reinvented:
    The app used image recognition to bring boxes to life (AR), instantly showing videos, stories, and inspiration to fuel creative imagination and purchasing confidence.

  • Seamless Brand Experience:
    We created a fully branded, intuitive companion that integrated naturally into the shopping journey, from shelf to checkout.

  • Personalised Recommendations in Real Time:
    Based on browsing behaviour and scanned products, the app surfaced tailored ideas and set suggestions, bridging impulse and informed purchase.

  • Creative Content at Point of Sale:
    From build ideas to product reviews, the app delivered story-rich content exactly when and where it mattered most.

  • Retail Theatre Meets Digital Utility:
    Physical play and digital engagement were brought together to create emotional connection, boost dwell time, and increase conversion.

Business Outcomes

  • +30% increase in dwell time. Shoppers engaged longer in-store, exploring more products through digital touch-points.

  • +22% uplift in assisted conversion. Real-time product stories and content led to more informed purchases.

  • Enhanced retail analytics. New data on user interests, product interactions, and conversion pathways.

  • Reduced decision friction. Personalised suggestions helped users navigate the product range with confidence.

  • Scalable experience layer. Easily rolled out across stores globally, enhancing both flagship and everyday retail formats.

Functional Value Delivered

  • Interactive Utility: Transformed static packaging into dynamic product engagement

  • Frictionless Product Discovery: Helped customers find the right set at the right moment

  • Emotional Engagement: Turned purchase into play through storytelling and creativity

  • Retail Insight: Provided rich behavioural data from previously untrackable in-store activity

  • Brand & Basket Integration: Strengthened the connection between brand love and transaction

Recent Projects

Working with one of the UK’s largest retailers, our team helped define, plan, and scope a comprehensive loyalty programme that now serves as the foundation for a wide range of functional benefits. What began as a retail initiative has evolved into a platform that extends well beyond shopping—integrating seamlessly into the daily lives of over 8 million users and driving long-term engagement, utility, and brand value.

Our team has played a central role in shaping the processes behind a newly established fund, purpose-built to support the innovation ecosystem by improving access to capital. Recognising the unique challenges faced by venture capital, growth, and private equity managers, we collaborated closely with private asset managers across Europe and North America to design systems tailored to the specific financing needs of this sector.

Many brands face challenges integrating acquired businesses, often lacking a clear strategy for whether the brand should remain, merge, or be retired.

Our work with a leading insurance firm, following multiple acquisitions has helped build stronger collaboration across the organisation and contributed to a 165% increase in market value.

Case Studies

 

What we believe in

  • For over two decades, we’ve been observing, understanding, and engaging with human behaviour in all its complexity, capturing what makes us unique and what brings us together.

    At FIT, our researchers immerse themselves in the real world, because we believe the best way to understand change is to experience it up close, from within.

  • As Nicholas Negroponte noted, we’re shifting from atoms to bits. Data is becoming central to everyday life. But data alone, no matter how big, isn’t enough. On its own, it doesn’t lead to the right decisions.

    We go beyond surface behaviours to explore emotions, fixations, and deeper human needs. What truly creates value? How can that value be captured, and scaled?

  • We design projects in partnership with our clients and stakeholders, knowing that collaboration leads to real impact and practical results.

    Using collective intelligence and design thinking, we create artefacts, films, books, prototypes, products, and narratives that drive meaningful change.