LEGO is building on a surge in fan enthusiasm for its multi-colored blocks with a social media campaign ” LEGO CL!CK”, that encourages people to share their “eureka” moments online.

The campaign was created by San Francisco-based agency Pereira & O’Dell, that was founded two years ago by ex-AKQA staffers P.J. Pereira and Andrew O’Dell. LEGO CL!CK launched last week with a website, an animated short film, LEGO’s first-ever iPhone app, and a PR/social media push simultaneously on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Similar to  Pereira & O’Dell’s Go Mini-Man Go! campaign last year, this new effort is a mix of original content, sourced content, and user-generated videos and photos. Over the past few years LEGO fans have uploaded thousands of videos to YouTube and photos to Flickr, and to keep that momentum going, the creative team behind LEGO CL!CK are capitalizing on the grass-roots fan base and hoping LEGO CL!CK will become a platform for dialogue between LEGO and young parents.

“Innovation is really broad, so we thought how can you get a parent to really want to push innovation for their children? We thought that connecting parents back to the moment when they first were innovative was a really big idea.” says associate creative director Jaime Robinson.

“This is really is a hub for people of all levels of creativity, innovation, imagination, artists, photographers, cooks and your average-day person, to share what inspires them,” adds Associate Creative Director Jason Apaliski.

Visitors to the blog-style legoclick.com are introduced to the overall theme of the campaign with a three-minute stop-motion animated film about a struggling inventor who seeks out inspiration in a fairytale factory populated by LEGO mini-men.

Directed by MJZ’s Blue Source, the film features several multi-colored LEGO lightbulbs the campaign’s icon which was designed and built by master LEGO builder Peter Donner (what a great job title). The short film ends with the tagline, “Great ideas just click.”

“The symbol of the light bulb is going to take on more meaning as well,” says executive creative director Kash Sree. “Over time, if we read about someone who has a great idea, we’re going to send them a LEGO light bulb as a way of saying hey good idea.”

Visitors to the site can either scroll through the site’s posts or filter out topics by category. Currently featured content already up on the site includes blog posts written by Steve Madewell, “resident eccentric” at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for Invention and Innovation, and LEGO senior designer Keith Malone. In a genius move Pereira & O’Dell have also partnered with bloggers from Boing Boing, Wired and Gizmodo, artists, photographers and filmmakers to create more original content for the site.

There is also a collection of inspiration-themed press clippings, videos, photos and tweets with the campaign (hashtag #legoclick). To make sure all tweets are safe, each is pre-screened before they are added to the site. This way LEGO can flag and delete any potentially offensive material.

As a tie-in, Pereira & O’Dell have also created the new “LEGO Photo” iPhone app that turns any photos into a LEGO mosaic that can be uploaded to the LEGO CL!CK site.

While past attempts at brand-centered social networking have failed to capture the public’s imagination, the creative team behind Cl!CK say this type of platform fits with LEGO because its fans have already established an online fan base, that is based on the idea of sharing photos and videos online.

“LEGO is such a lovable brand, and we just want to harness that love.” says Apaliski.

One thing that I really like about this campaign is the fact that LEGO has realized they don’t have to try to monetize  the online experience or the iPhone application to make money from this. That by using this as a vehicle to build brand awareness, loyalty and buzz, they can convert clicks to dollars by getting people interested in the physical product they make.