Greenpeace activists protested Thursday outside a Lego store in Chile, condemning a deal between the toy company and oil giant Shell that the environmental group says is "polluting kids' imaginations."
Dressed up as Lego figures and carrying a banner reading "Lego: Don't let Shell play with the Arctic," activists condemned the Anglo-Dutch oil company's exploration activities in the Arctic and Lego's launch of a promotional product line carrying the Shell logo.
"The oil company is using the Lego brand to clean up its image and hide its plans to extract oil from the Arctic," said Greenpeace Chile director Matias Asun, who gave a petition against the two companies' cross-marketing deal to managers at the store in an upmarket neighborhood of Santiago.
Greenpeace has gone on the offensive in recent weeks against the deal between Shell and Lego, which includes a series of six toy cars that customers can obtain by filling up at Shell service stations.
The environmental group recently released an online video that depicts a happy Arctic Lego town slowly disappearing beneath an oil spill, the dark sludge drowning toy fish, polar bears and people until nothing remains but a plastic Shell flag flying over a blackened sea.
The video, called "Lego: Everything is NOT awesome" -- a play on the song used to market the successful Lego movie released in February -- can be viewed at greenpeace.org/awesomevideo.