Rooted in cultural insight and local data, the campaign aims to reframe Father’s Day not as a moment of grand gestures, but as an opportunity for shared connection. The insight? For UAE dads, the most meaningful gifts aren’t bought they’re built.

A commissioned YouGov survey revealed that 75% of dads in the UAE have received the same gift multiple times, with shirts, wallets and mugs topping the list. Despite this, many fathers say what they truly value are simple shared moments, building something together, crafting with their kids, or enjoying uninterrupted time.

In response, the LEGO Group is inspiring families to transform classic gifts from mugs to aftershave bottles into playful, brick-built versions, reviving the art of handmade gifting and turning ordinary presents into lasting memories.

The campaign was a collaboration between Publicis Middle East and MSL Middle East, with MSL handling the strategy and insights and earned amplification and PME leading on creative.

An Underrated Occasion, A Reframed Narrative
While Father’s Day is officially recognised in the UAE, it remains under-celebrated, with Mother’s Day holding more cultural weight, in the region. Yet conversations with expat fathers across the UAE revealed a desire for more meaningful engagement, with many describing the day as a chance to be present, unplugged, and playful with their children.

“Build It With Him”
The creative activation launched just ahead of Father’s Day on June 21, in sync with World Play Day on June 11. Featuring a series of light-hearted, visual reinterpretations of everyday gifts reimagined in LEGO® bricks, the campaign blends humour with sentimentality, inviting families to think beyond the token shirt or mug and instead co-create something together.

Immersive experiences offer regional brands a compelling avenue to deepen consumer engagement by creating emotionally resonant and participatory interactions. In my recent study, I explored how such experiences transform brand spaces into meaningful narratives that reflect corporate identity and values through architectural, material, and performative elements. This strategic approach creates a sense of belonging among consumers and encourages active participation, turning passive audiences into brand enthusiasts. For regional brands, adopting similar strategies can be transformative. By weaving local culture into immersive formats, whether physical or digital, brands can stand out in an oversaturated market and cultivate lasting emotional connections. Immersive experiences could allow regional brands to communicate not just products or services, but stories and values that resonate deeply with UAE communities, especially during the Year of Community.

Lego is often used in team building exercises for companies, so what can marketers learn from such a brand?

As a certified LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator, I have seen firsthand how LEGO transcends from being just a toy to powerful medium for team building, problem-solving, and creative strategy. Marketers can learn a great deal from this. This methodology creates a playful yet purposeful atmosphere where participants collaborate, explore real-time challenges, and unlock creative potential through tactile engagement. The colorful bricks stimulate curiosity and storytelling, helping teams visualize abstract ideas and build shared understanding. This hands-on, minds-on process reflects core marketing values: participation, creativity, and emotional resonance. Most importantly, participants leave these sessions with a sense of achievement and a smile, an emotional outcome every brand aspires to create. Marketers can adopt this model by designing campaigns and brand experiences that are participatory, emotionally satisfying, and driven by curiosity, creativity, and shared value creation.

In 1981, Lego issues the now iconic ad “what it is is beautiful” with a girl constructing “something” out of the bricks. Then they went full-on gender systemic. Do you feel brands such as Lego can be “gender-specific”?

LEGO has long positioned itself as a gender-neutral, educational toy promoting creativity and skill development. However, my research shows that the brand’s gender dynamics, especially since the 1990s, reflect a more complex narrative. While the 1981 “What it is is beautiful” ad celebrated open-ended play, later strategies, like LEGO Paradisa or Friends, introduced a more gendered aesthetic. Although LEGO Group states it targets both boys and girls equally, many female fans still perceive a masculine element in themes and characters. Today, LEGO is making efforts to balance representation: female volcano explorers, pilots, and firefighters, are becoming more visible. Importantly, adult female fans challenge these “girlyfying” norms by creating empowering expressions of fandom through their creations. Gender-specific branding risks limiting creative play. Yet, when approached inclusively, it can also serve as a bridge for broader engagement. True empowerment lies in offering diverse stories, roles, and bricks for everyone to build their own identity.

Brands create fandoms which eventually give rise to communities, loyalty and at times obsession. How is this process handled, and where does it lead for the fans and the companies alike?

Brand fandoms frequently evolve into strong communities built on emotional resonance, storytelling, and participatory culture. These communities generate loyalty and a sense of belonging. My research across Europe, Japan, US, Brazil, and Mexico reveals diverse ecosystems with unique local expressions. At the center is the core fandom—a group of fans with privileged access to products, brand events, and official recognition. Their productivity and visibility are often amplified by the brand itself, making them global role models for fan culture.

However, my concept of periphery fandom introduces a critical lens: these are fan communities that exist at the margins. Members often feel distanced from the brand, with limited access to products or recognition, and a persistent sense of exclusion. Their fan practices are creative but under-acknowledged, and the fan experience can feel disempowering. Yet, these communities are also sites of innovation, resistance, and localized meaning-making. For companies, acknowledging periphery fandoms presents an opportunity to build more inclusive, globally resonant strategies. When brands engage meaningfully with all fans, not just the core, they unlock deeper loyalty, cultural relevance, and shared creative ownership of the brand.

Barbie film was one such example, but others are also in the making such as Hot Wheels. Nostalgia is a prime instigator, oddly sometimes for periods certain generations never experiences – fauxstalgia. How can brands tap into nostalgia without falling into stagnation?

Nostalgia is a powerful emotional driver. It is not just about longing for the past, but often about reclaiming something that was once out of reach. My recent presentation, Rebuilding Nostalgia, at the Popular Culture Association conference in New Orleans, focused on how adults are now revisiting their childhoods, with the toy industry seeing a surge in adult consumers buying for themselves. This isn’t merely sentimentality; it’s about identity, belonging, and creative re-engagement. Brands like LEGO and Mattel are capitalizing on this, blending nostalgia with media convergence, think LEGO movies and Fortnite integrations.

To avoid stagnation, brands must balance nostalgia with innovation. It’s not about repeating the past, but reimagining it. Companies should create layered content that speaks to longtime fans while remaining accessible and exciting for new audiences. Cross-platform storytelling, merging toys, films, and games, ensures cultural relevance and emotional resonance. Nostalgia works best when it invites both memory and imagination into play.

One of the issues about studying pop culture at large, is that it is often a domain reserved for children, yet ultimately, it is pop culture which gives us collective memory and ergo, shared experiences as adults. How to eventually explain this for audiences?

Popular culture has long been dismissed, yet it fundamentally shapes how we remember, connect, and consume. Today, fandom is at the heart of social media culture, driving trends, influencing buying behavior, and amplifying brand narratives. Fandoms are no longer passive audiences; they are active communities that generate content, set agendas, and redefine the relationship between consumers and media.

Explaining this shift means highlighting how deeply intertwined fandom is with the way we experience modern culture. On platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit, fans remix and reimagine cultural products, creating new meanings and forming online communities. These spaces fuel viral moments, create brand ambassadors, and shape market demand, often faster and more authentically than traditional marketing.

Studying fandom helps us understand how influence works today, why people care, how they engage, and what drives loyalty. Fandom reveals the dynamics of modern identity, creativity, and community-building. For brands and scholars alike, taking fandom seriously means recognizing its power to shape narratives, elevate engagement, and create long-lasting emotional connections across media and culture.

Entrepreneur and Founder of Markettcom, a leading licensing agency in the Middle East, Amed Bittar, emphasizes the importance of strategic partnerships in helping brands and advertisers expand their reach within the region. "In the Middle East, driving strategic partnerships can open new avenues for brand growth and consumer engagement," says Bittar.

The good old partnership between Nike and Apple revolutionized the fitness tech industry with the Nike+iPod product line. Also, BMW and Louis Vuitton -blending luxury automotive and fashion to create bespoke travel accessories. It's fair to say strategic co-branding can prove to be a successful approach to achieving brand success.

In the latest news, British supercar maker, McLaren Automotive and the LEGO Group today unveil their latest collaboration paying tribute to the world’s most pioneering hybrid hypercar, with the introduction of the LEGO® Technic™ McLaren P1™.

Created to become ‘the best driver’s car in the world on both road and track’, the design and technical specifications of the McLaren P1™ served as the foundation to deliver on this ambition. The remarkable hypercar is recognized as a landmark both for McLaren and the development of high-performance hybrid vehicles.

The engineering and technology underpinning the performance, style, and functional design of the McLaren P1™, made the perfect challenge for the LEGO Technic team to replicate in 1:8 scale.

Unveiled as part of the LEGO Technic Ultimate Car Concept Series, the all-new 1:8 scale LEGO Technic version consists of 3,893 elements and each car features a unique serial number which unlocks special behind-the-scenes content. The model has a 7-speed gearbox with 2 shifter drums, suspension, a V8 piston engine, an adjustable rear wing, and opening dihedral doors with advanced mechanisms – all guaranteeing an immersive building experience from start to finish that is authentic to the real McLaren P1™.  

The model was created by the LEGO Technic design team in collaboration with McLaren Automotive. Both teams were focused on implementing cutting-edge functionality in the model, as a tribute to both the real P1™ and the engineering excellence that McLaren is known for.

Commenting on the product launch, Tobias Sühlmann Chief Design Officer, McLaren Automotive, “It’s amazing to see so many of the elements from the original P1 brought to life by the LEGO team for the LEGO Technic McLaren P1™. I hope this collaboration inspires the next generation of designers and engineers to push the boundaries of automotive innovation.”

“From the exterior with aerodynamic shapes to the interior and V8 piston engine – the real McLaren P1™ is an incredible car. We wanted to capture these details in the best way possible with our LEGO Technic model and we did not want to compromise in any way," added Kasper Rene Hansen, Designer, LEGO Group. “Therefore, we worked on multiple variations of the car to test different designs. We also faced a huge challenge with the iconic butterfly doors because they needed a new mechanism to stay open. It was a great experience to recreate the McLaren P1™ and I’m hoping all supercar enthusiasts out there are ready to explore the details and intricacies of the real McLaren P1™ in LEGO Technic form,” he concluded.   

The Adidas Liquid Billboard also won 2x Gold (Outdoor Media and PR), 2x Silver (Integrated Campaign and Live Communications), 1x Bronze (Media Innovation), and a Craft Certificate (OOH Craft). The Lego News Rebuilt (Lego's own version of KSA’s largest newspaper's National Day Edition, released within a matter of hours and featuring the same news articles but with every photograph and visual element rebuilt completely out of Lego) won 1x Gold (Tactical use of Print) and 1x Bronze (Media Innovation).

In total, Havas Middle East won 9 Loeries.

“The Loeries are a great recognition, and the region’s only GP this year is an even bigger reason to be proud. The Middle East is the place to be in the industry nowadays and Havas’s contribution to the creative momentum of a region known for its innovative ideas is an amazing story to tell,” Fabio Silveira, General Manager at Havas Creative, said in a statement.

Users will be spending less time on their phone

The new Screen Time app is aimed at reducing users’ digital time by providing daily reports on how much time users are spending on their apps with a breakdown of where this time is spent. It will even show how many times a day one checks their phone and what apps they open every time they do so.

The more addictive your app, the less time users will spend on it

Social media addicts take note because Screen Time will even allow users to set a time maximum time limit on certain apps.

iOS 12 will also allow parents fully remote control of what apps their kids can use and for how long.

And tracking users just got a whole lot harder

Apple went in hard on its commitment to users’ privacy.

READ: Vogue Arabia’s masterclass in losing readers in just 1 day

First up, Safari in the new Mac OS won’t allow companies (mainly Facebook) to track users through ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ buttons, which are notorious for tracking users even when NOT clicked.

In fact, it will even go one step further and notify users when a website tries to access their cookies and data.

Secondly, and this is huge, it’s coming down heavy on something called ‘fingerprinting,’ which is an approach in which companies collect public information about the device (OS, configuration, plug-ins, fonts, etc.) to assign each device a tracked ID. Both, Mojave, the new Mac OS, and iOS 12, will erase much of this data so that all users’ devices appear the same to data companies and advertisers.

[Tweet “Apple’s #WWDC2018 cracks down on Facebook & other data companies with Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.0.”]

All of this is part of what Apple is calling “Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.0.” Its first version – although nascent at the time – also included noteworthy measures such as blocking auto play ads on Safari.

A whole new world of AR

Apple’s ARKit for developers launched with iOS 11 last year leading to several AR-based apps. Even brands jumped onto the bandwagon including IKEA, which created the app IKEA Place allowing users to place and play around with furniture in their own room.

MUST READ: Goodbye, fake news. Finally!

ARKit 2, announced yesterday, has massive updates including improved face tracking, more realistic rendering and 3D object detection.

Along with these updates, what’s exciting for brands looking to enter the AR space is the introduction of shared experiences, which allows multiple iOS users view the same virtual environment, but from their own view. Apple has already partnered with LEGO to create such a game, which it showcased at the demo.

There’s also something called persistent experiences, which allows users to save AR spaces and objects that are linked to physical spaces and objects.

READ: Is your voice assistant spying on you?

Apple also announced that it is working with Pixar to create a new file format for AR, which means users are going to be sharing AR experiences much more than before.

These updates are making it both, consumer and brand adoption, of AR much easier than VR, which requires a higher investment and has lower returns.

While ARKit 2 holds new promises for advertisers, the other three updates are only going to make it harder for brands to reach and track consumers – 1.2 billion of them.

Earlier this year, Initiative reinvented its product offering and positioning to find alternatives for clients increasingly struggling with advertising avoidance and shifts in consumer behavior. The agency now aims to lead clients through changes in the industry by focusing on “cultural branding” as opposed to historical “brand advertising”.

“We are excited about working with the Initiative team to connect with parents and kids in new, innovative ways. After an extensive global review, we believe that Initiative’s digital-first approach, international reach and strong local insights will support our long-term ambition to bring LEGO play to more children around the world,” says Julia Goldin, chief marketing officer of The LEGO Group.

“The LEGO brand and iconic products have a special place in the lives of children and parents, and we’re honored they’ve entrusted us with such a big responsibility. We’re thrilled to be part of their team,” says Mat Baxter, Global CEO of Initiative.

The LEGO Group is the third global client to appoint the agency this year, following the Carlsberg win and retaining the Amazon business.

Initiative and R/GA, both part of Interpublic Group of Cos. (IPG), formed a cross-agency solution to serve the diverse needs of the brand as it evolves for the next generation of consumers.