LEGO pulls all ads for police toys and donates $4 million

LEGO says they’re standing in solidarity against racism and inequality.

The company has been showing it’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement in a couple of ways. This week they announced that they would donate $4 million to “organizations dedicated to supporting black children and educating all children about racial equality”.

pic.twitter.com/gpWKJ8pr7V

— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) June 3, 2020

They’ve also requested all advertising to be pulled for their police-related toys. According to The Toybook, the LEGO company sent out a message to marketers for 30 building sets, accessories, and mini-figures “to be removed from sites and marketing ASAP”.

We’ve seen incorrect reports saying we’ve removed some LEGO sets from sale. To be clear, that is not the case and reports otherwise are false. Our intention was to temporarily pause digital advertising in response to events in the US. We hope this clears things up. ??

— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) June 4, 2020

Many fansites have taken the conversation to Twitter, sharing the email with the list of products to be removed from ads.

Got an email earlier from @Rakuten telling us to remove any ad links for @LEGO_Group products including a police theme.

The products are still for sale, they just don’t want them advertised.

Challenging times. pic.twitter.com/sxdjyUXZmJ

— Michael “The Ramen King” Clark (@firstmentormike) June 3, 2020

LEGO sent an email asking that police/fire/whitehouse (and donut shop) sets no longer be marketed effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/ydFE7dGTGA

— Anti-Fascist Kingdom (@stitchkingdom) June 2, 2020

 As the company said, contrary to rumours these toys are not being taken off the shelves, just removed from social media during this time.