B&TB&TB&T
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Search
Trending topics:
  • Cairns Crocodiles
  • Nine
  • Seven
  • Federal Election
  • Pinterest
  • AFL
  • WPP
  • AI
  • Anthony Albanese
  • NRL
  • EssenceMediaCom
  • Thinkerbell
  • News Corp
  • Channel 10
  • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • State of Origin
  • Cairns Hatchlings
  • TV Ratings
  • Radio Ratings
  • Sports Marketing

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
Reading: Get Religious With Branding Urges Lego-Freak Lindstrom
Share
B&TB&T
Subscribe
Search
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
B&T > Media > Get Religious With Branding Urges Lego-Freak Lindstrom
Media

Get Religious With Branding Urges Lego-Freak Lindstrom

David Hovenden
Published on: 13th November 2014 at 3:05 PM
David Hovenden
Share
3 Min Read
SHARE

When Martin Lindstrom was growing up in Denmark, like many kids his age he loved Lego. So much so was his love for the little plastic bricks that he slept on a bed made out of Lego and built his very own Lego land in his backyard.

The trouble for him was that nobody turned up. So he decided to advertise his home-grown attraction and he succeeded in bring 131 people to his place. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) for Martin, the last two people who arrived to see his wonderland were two Lego lawyers.

It’s an old story, but it’s what launched Lindstrom’s career as a brand guru and serves well to bring an understanding of the man behind the human brand who spends 300 days a year on the road preaching his message. He spoke this week at the World Marketing and Sales Forum in Melbourne.

Obsessive and proud, Lindstrom talks fast and has no doubt of his conviction. He answers all questions thrown at him with a machine gun tempo and lists his points numerically as he goes.

Lindstrom’s obsessive nature has seen him, delve deeply into research from the physical reaction of the human brain, which treats brands and religion as the same, through to people’s reactions when friends recommend brands and products. He’s worked with 25% of fortune 100 brands and he says about that many of them will survive into the future.

Check out some of his work here.

Companies will need to create stronger brands not unlike how religion is maintained, with company rituals and strong belief structures, he beleives. However many companies will fail this test because they are being run by politics and have lost focus  on customers.

Incumbent organisations will also struggle with innovating and delivering consumers what they need because they are held back by fear.

The gap opened by this reluctance or inability to change, opens the door for nimble startups, which have nothing to lose, to steal market share. Concepts like authenticity and ethics will become key leverage points for challenger brands looking to exploit slow moving incumbents, says Lindstrom.

The key message for big companies from Lindstrom: you’re not that safe anymore.

Join more than 30,000 advertising industry experts
Get all the latest advertising and media news direct to your inbox from B&T.

No related posts.

TAGGED: Advertising Standards Bureau
Share
David Hovenden
By David Hovenden
Follow:
David Hovenden is one of the co-founders of The Misfits Media Company and is B&T's editor-in-chief. He has been writing about advertising, marketing and media for more than 15 years. At the same time, he has also written for B&T's sister publication Travel Weekly on all matters travel related. Through this publication he can claim to have stepped foot on every continent in the world (now claimed to be eight, if you accept NZ is its own continent). He has also covered the business of law when he was editor-in-chief and publisher of Lawyer Weekly. Human Resources when he worked for that eponymously named title and a plethora of business and technology publications including, but not limited to PC Week, Australian Personal Computer, Web Week, Internet World, Factory Equipment News, Architecture Today and Building Product News. In his spare time David enjoys fishing, kayaking, fine dining and spending time with his family.

Latest News

TV Ratings (12/6/2025): 1.4 Million People Viewed The Western Bulldogs Kicking Its Way Into The Top Eight
13/06/2025
WARC Downgrades Global Ad Spend Forecast Amid “Trade Tensions” & Uncertain Tech Market
13/06/2025
Marketers Call For Measurement ‘Parity’ In Video, But One Buyer Warns ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’
13/06/2025
Meta Cracks Down On Nudify Apps & Sues Hong Kong Developer Behind CrushAI
13/06/2025
//

B&T is Australia’s leading news publication magazine for the advertising, marketing, media and PR industries.

 

B&T is owned by parent company The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.

About B&T

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise

Top Categories

  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Opinion
  • Technology
  • TV Ratings

Sign Up for Our Newsletter



B&TB&T
Follow US
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Register Lost your password?