How L.O.L. Surprise! Is Winning Over a New Generation Through Live Music
What happens when the kids who grew up with your brand become teenagers?
For MGA Entertainment CMO Josh Hackbarth, that question helped shape L.O.L. Surprise!’s 10th anniversary. The brand had built a global following around the thrill of unboxing. Now, some of its earliest fans were discovering music festivals, and L.O.L. Surprise! saw an opportunity to grow with them.
At Lollapalooza, the brand brought its signature unboxing experience to life with a larger than life-size pink surprise ball filled with hidden prizes, collectibles and VIP upgrades. Fans waited up to an hour to take part. And with K-pop superstar JENNIE headlining the festival, the brand’s existing collaboration with the artist added another dimension to its music strategy.
But the ambition went beyond a weekend in Chicago. The experience was part of a larger campaign spanning original entertainment, influencers, social content and paid media, designed to reach fans at the festival and millions more who weren’t there.
Live Nation’s Jeff Shaw, EVP of Brand Partnerships and Business Strategy, sat down with Hackbarth to discuss the thinking behind the partnership, what it takes to earn fans’ attention and why the brand is betting on live music to help shape its next decade.
Jeff Shaw: L.O.L. Surprise! is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and some of the kids who grew up with the brand are now teenagers discovering music festivals. How did that influence your decision to make live music part of the anniversary campaign?
Josh: Music has always been embedded in toy culture. You can trace it back to the ’70s and ’80s and the toy jingles. For L.O.L. Surprise!, it has been part of the brand’s DNA from the beginning, just as it has been for many of our brands at MGA. It’s central to how we bring our stories to life across content, animation, film and series.
When we were thinking about how to celebrate L.O.L. Surprise!’s 10th anniversary, we thought leaning into music was a natural evolution. We also have fans who grew up with our brand and are now experiencing their first music festivals.
We’re all about surprise, and at festivals like Lollapalooza, you never know who will show up onstage, what special guests will come out or what they’ll sing. We love that element of surprise, along with the big, bold fashion and self-expression you see at a festival. That’s what we’re all about, too.
Jeff Shaw: Bringing a toy brand to Lollapalooza isn’t the most obvious move, and you described it as a bold bet internally. You also came to us with one of the most thoughtful briefs we’ve received. How did you build the strategy and determine what would make the partnership feel authentic to fans?
Josh: We always have a tentpole campaign every year for our brand. We wanted to lean into music this year, and we have some other initiatives doing that. It was a bold bet internally. When you talk about a toy brand, you don’t always think they’ll activate at Lollapalooza. What was important was that it organically made sense.
When we first met with you, we wanted to make sure we were showing all the excitement of the brand. We wanted to make the Live Nation team as excited as we were. If we were trying to force it and not match it to fans, it wouldn’t work. We did a ton of work to make sure you understood our brand.
We built it around three questions: Why does L.O.L. Surprise! belong at a music festival, beyond the fact that our customers were six and are now 16? What are we adding to the fan experience, for both our fans and the festival fans? And what are they walking away with, not just physically, but in terms of memories?
It was all about surprise and delight. We were built around the unboxing phenomenon. Hours and hours of YouTube with fans unwrapping L.O.L. Surprise!, and the rush when you find your chase character or outfit. We wanted to bring that to life.
Jeff Shaw: You knew what made L.O.L. Surprise! special, and our team brought an understanding of the festival audience. How did that collaboration shape the experience you ultimately created?
Josh: It goes back to the partnership we have with the Live Nation team. We wanted to give our creative team the freedom to bring ideas. We know our brand, but we didn’t know the festival audience as well as Live Nation does. We bounced around a bunch of crazy ideas. Central to them was: How do you really deliver fans a surprise experience, and how is that scalable?
My favorite part was taking the giant L.O.L. Surprise! ball and making that a surprise in and of itself. There were so many doors, with a different surprise behind each one.
It was fun to watch fan reactions. We didn’t know what to expect going in. It could’ve just been a photo opportunity, but fans were able to re-create the surprise they get from opening a L.O.L. Surprise! ball.
Jeff Shaw: The experience at Lollapalooza was one part of a much larger anniversary campaign. How did you connect what was happening at the festival with your entertainment, artist collaborations and marketing to reach fans beyond Chicago?
Josh: We had three initiatives we were executing this summer. For the 10th anniversary of L.O.L. Surprise!, we wanted people to remember how exciting it is to get a L.O.L. ball and not be sure what you’d get inside.
The other place we were going was: How do we lean into music itself and younger consumers? We launched a live-action YouTube series, L.O.L. Surprise! The Next Headliner, over Lolla weekend featuring a fictitious girl group we created. We brought that cast to Lolla as our ambassadors and influencers.
The third piece was a little more serendipitous. We have a lot of celebrity partnerships, one of which was with Jennie, and she happened to be headlining Lolla. I’d love to say L.O.L. Surprise! influenced the lineup at Lolla, but it was truly three separate things coming together.
We were boosting it across everything we were doing, with a bunch of paid media, social, sweepstakes and so on, to bring it beyond just the experience. We wanted to create FOMO for millions of fans who weren’t there.
Jeff Shaw: What surprised you most about how fans responded, and what would you tell another CMO who’s considering live music for the first time?
Josh: The biggest thing we learned, and I guess I experienced it as a fan, is the power of people actively participating versus viewing it. It’s hard to put into words.
We had an activity where people could select a door in the L.O.L. ball, and it made it a game. The type of content we could capture was incredible. We also had 10 Gold Jennies that 10 lucky fans got, with special upgrades, merch and more. The screams of joy we witnessed!
I also didn’t realize how long people would wait in line for the experience. You’re never really sure if it’ll take off. It was exciting to see people wait for an hour.
Jeff Shaw: You’ve now seen how L.O.L. Surprise! can translate into a live experience. As you look ahead, how are you thinking about continuing to grow with your existing fans while introducing the brand to new generations?
Josh: Not many toy brands make it 10 years. We’ve evolved beyond that. We’re a cultural brand, so we can tap into a lot of different things, like live music.
At the core is surprise. How do we keep delivering on that surprise and discovery? Whether it’s new collaborations, toys or who knows what it looks like at Lolla next year.
We’re growing with our fans and bringing in new generations. There were lots of families at Lolla. We’re bringing new four- and five-year-olds into the brand and delighting them in the same way their older siblings or cousins were.
Jeff Shaw: MGA has a portfolio of brands with passionate audiences and strong cultural identities. Has the experience with L.O.L. Surprise! changed how you’re thinking about the role live experiences could play across the business?
Josh: It has to organically work. L.O.L. worked, and many of our other brands could, too, because of their cultural resonance. Bratz is a great example.
What I love about experiences is delivering a great moment for those who are there, but it also drives fans to talk about our brand. We look at the organic excitement and how we can fuel that.
We believe strongly in our brands and want to give them all the ingredients to create their own experiences.
