Hollywood Monster looks to build relationship with Lego after London wrap
BIRMINGHAM signage firm Hollywood Monster has helped toymaker Lego build its profile in London.
The signage firm has looked to make its mark in the capital during the last 12 months and the work with Lego – in association with its marketing and PR agency Norton & Co – has been one of its most high-profile contracts.
The project saw it produce the wrap for the toy brand’s new flagship store in Leicester Square. It has also erected a digital advertising installation in the centre of Piccadilly Circus for another client.
The projects add to Hollywood Monster’s growing portfolio of work in London, including work for the 2012 Olympics, Westfield shopping centre and Fortnum and Mason.
The new site is the toy company’s biggest store in the world and required 260m² of vinyl to stay hidden. Disguised as a Lego toy tub, the building’s huge hoarding featured a Union-Jack-clad Lego figure who invited passers-by to watch the store ‘unboxing’.
Continuing the theme of making the store a giant toy box, in the place of the usual product description customers were informed that the shop would be suitable for ages 0-99+ and had over 30 million pieces inside.
The project was brought to life by welding together four graphics and installing them on to a prefabricated 44m x 9m truss. The frame was assembled overnight three days ahead of launch by a team of 12 fitters, taking 20 man hours in total. The result was a free-standing structure with banners that could be detached and dropped in time for the big reveal.
Simon McKenzie, managing director at Hollywood Monster, worked on the job alongside project manager, Alice Lutwyche.
He said: “We were delighted to be asked to undertake this project, as building a freestanding structure of this scale in such a high profile location is a very rare opportunity. This was our first experience working with Lego, and it was a real team effort: every step from the initial design work to the moment the banner dropped took meticulous planning to execute perfectly. I could not be more pleased with how it turned out and I hope this is the first of many collaborations between us.”
The Lego collaboration completed a week before another high-profile signage project which involved Hollywood Monster working with Wildstone, an outdoor advertising consultancy firm, to create pop-up display with a difference.
The three-metre-tall octagon was pitched in the middle of Piccadilly Circus and the installation has digital features on each side that will display adverts from brands such as Samsung during the festive season. Hollywood Monster dispatched two crews to assemble the piece, a feat that took four days to complete. It will remain in place until mid-January.
“This is the third consecutive year that we have worked with Wildstone to put together the Piccadilly Circus installation, and every year we try and make it bigger and better. I think we have once again achieved this. We’re already thinking about what we’ll make next year,” added Mr McKenzie.
