Background
About the company
Playmobil is one of the world’s most recognisable toy brands, with a long-established heritage, global distribution, and strong consumer trust built over decades.
Products
Playmobil is a globally recognised toy brand known for its high-quality figurines and themed playsets that stimulate imagination, creative storytelling, and open-ended play in children. The core target group is boys and girls aged approximately 4–10 years, with complementary ranges for younger children and multi-generational engagement.
Playmobil’s product portfolio spans a wide variety of themes — from everyday life scenes and historical settings to city life and fantasy worlds — offering diverse narrative possibilities that encourage role-play and social interaction.
Unlike some competitors, Playmobil’s play systems emphasise storytelling and imaginative role-play rather than complex construction mechanics. This positions the brand in a distinctive niche that fosters creativity and cognitive development, even though it has historically struggled to match the global brand amplification and cross-age appeal achieved by competitors like LEGO. This led it to avoid IPs for decades and when adopted it looked at more niche IPs rather than mega brands like Star Wars.
Scenario
This project began as an online marketing and branding study project but quickly expanded into a broader strategic analysis of Playmobil’s global digital positioning.
The original brief focused on basic online marketing concepts. Early research, however, revealed a larger strategic question: why Playmobil, despite its brand strength and history, was not operating at the same global digital and cultural level as LEGO in 2018.
Rather than limiting the work to a narrow tactical exercise, the project evolved to examine brand positioning, digital visibility, content strategy, search performance, and international marketing coherence across markets.
Approach & execution
The project involved in-depth market and competitor research, using LEGO as a global benchmark. I analysed brand narrative, storytelling, and audience engagement across digital channels, and developed an integrated digital marketing strategy covering content, SEO, SEA, channels, and communications.
The work deliberately extended beyond the course framework, framing recommendations at brand and leadership level rather than focusing solely on campaign execution. The analysis took a global perspective, assessing consistency, reach, and strategic alignment across markets.
Outcomes & reflection
The scope and ambition of the project went significantly beyond the original digital marketing start and continued on into brand strategy and marketing.
Although the project was not commissioned by Playmobil, many of the strategic themes and recommendations developed during the analysis were later reflected in changes implemented under a new CEO over the following five years, reinforcing the validity of the conclusions reached.
This project demonstrated independent strategic thinking, a willingness to challenge constrained briefs, and the application of intelligence-led research skills to digital marketing and brand strategy.
Context
This project was completed as part of a certified Online Marketing programme (German language) with Karriere Tutor and was conducted entirely in my second language.
See the project PDF here
