STOCKHOLM -- Lego A/S, the Danish toy-brick maker, said it will end its decades-long, co-branding relationship with oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC amid pressure from environmental group Greenpeace, which targeted the companies' deal in a much-watched YouTube video and petition, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Since the 1960s, Lego has built play sets branded with the Shell logo. The sets, including Shell filling stations, tanker trucks and Shell-sponsored race cars, have been sold at Shell gas stations as well as retailers that carry Lego sets. Lego has had similar arrangements with other companies, including the Maersk shipping unit of Danish conglomerate A.P. Moeller-Maersk.
In July, Greenpeace circulated an online petition calling for Lego to sever ties with Shell, which it has accused of operating recklessly in exploring for oil in the Arctic. Shell suspended an Arctic drilling program offshore Alaska in 2013, said the report, but it has kept its options open.
Shell says it operates responsibly in the Arctic and elsewhere, and takes the risk of environmental damage seriously.
As part of its campaign, Greenpeace released an online video, called “LEGO: Everything is NOT Awesome,” a spoof on the title song of the popular Lego movie. The video depicts an Arctic wonderland made of Lego bricks that is eventually flooded with spilled oil. It asks viewers to sign the petition urging Lego to sever ties with Shell. Greenpeace had targeted 1.25 million signatures and says it has garnered more than a million so far.
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, president and CEO of the LEGO Group, posted this comment on the company's website:
"Children are our major concern and the central focus of our company. We are determined to leave a positive impact on society and the planet that children will inherit. Our unique contribution is through inspiring and developing children by delivering creative play experiences all over the world.
"A co-promotion like the one with Shell is one of many ways we are able to bring LEGO bricks into the hands of more children and deliver on our promise of creative play.
"The Greenpeace campaign uses the LEGO brand to target Shell. As we have stated before, we firmly believe Greenpeace ought to have a direct conversation with Shell. The LEGO brand, and everyone who enjoys creative play, should never have become part of Greenpeace's dispute with Shell.
"Our stakeholders have high expectations to the way we operate. So do we. We do not agree with the tactics used by Greenpeace that may have created misunderstandings among our stakeholders about the way we operate; and we want to ensure that our attention is not diverted from our commitment to delivering creative and inspiring play experiences.
The long-term co-promotion contract we entered with Shell in 2011 delivers on the objective of bringing LEGO bricks into the hands of many children, and we will honor it--as we would with any contract we enter.
"We continuously consider many different ways of how to deliver on our promise of bringing creative play to more children. We want to clarify that as things currently stand we will not renew the co-promotion contract with Shell when the present contract ends.
"We do not want to be part of Greenpeace's campaign, and we will not comment any further on the campaign. We will continue to deliver creative and inspiring LEGO play experiences to children all over the world."
The existing contract between Shell and Lego will end in 2016, Shell told PR Week in a separate report.
The first Lego sets featuring Shell-branded items were released in 1966, said the Journal. This year, Shell released Lego sets featuring four Formula One Ferrari racing cars, a miniature Grand Prix podium, a Formula One finish line with a Ferrari engineer and a miniature Shell station with a Lego-figure scientist. Shell and Ferrari, a unit of Fiat SpA, are Formula One racing partners.
"We’re very pleased with Lego's decision, after nearly half a century’s partnership, to abandon future collaborations with Shell," said Annika Jacobson, head of Greenpeace in Sweden, according to the report.
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