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

Background

This social media project for the fictional Asia Pacific Vitamin Council was completed during the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Certificate course. It is a low fidelity mockup for an ad.

View project here

Google Digital Marketing and E-Commerce Certification does not have a capstone project, so I am demonstrating course deliverables.

The project approached the issue of vitamin deficiency and malnourishment in poor inner city areas and in areas places where people don't have enough of the right food. It's meant to shock people who are affluent into seeing the work of the Vitamin Council and to warn people not to turn away from fruit and vegetables and vitamins, even though they might not have much money.

The work received interested feedback and discussion by peers. It used an art piece by Basquiat. It is very simple, raw and it is animated as a GIF. It uses art to raise the topic of vitamin deficiency in deprived communities. It was a great first post for learning and using Canva to make something quickly that worked as an animation. Further projects used more professional graphics and my own photos.

This is clearly a health warning post and not something to market a product.

This completed project demonstrates my ability to conceptualise, write and design tough and engaging content that deals with difficult but critical issues. It also demonstrates my approach to brand voice. Social media posts and influencers often only feature perfect lives and places, that has its place, but so does issue posting.