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How Lego Clicked: The Super Brand That Reinvented Itself (theguardian.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the bigger-than-Batman dept.

managerialslime shared an article about how Lego executed "the greatest turnaround in corporate history." The Guardian reports: By 2003 Lego was in big trouble. Sales were down 30% year-on-year and it was $800m in debt. An internal report revealed it hadn't added anything of value to its portfolio for a decade... In 2015, the still privately owned, family controlled Lego Group overtook Ferrari to become the world's most powerful brand. It announced profits of £660m, making it the number one toy company in Europe and Asia, and number three in North America, where sales topped $1bn for the first time. From 2008 to 2010 its profits quadrupled, outstripping Apple's. Indeed, it has been called the Apple of toys: a profit-generating, design-driven miracle built around premium, intuitive, covetable hardware that fans can't get enough of. Last year Lego sold 75bn bricks. Lego people -- "Minifigures" -- the 4cm-tall yellow characters with dotty eyes, permanent grins, hooks for hands and pegs for legs -- outnumber humans. The British Toy Retailers Association voted Lego the toy of the century.
It's a good read. The article describes how CEO Vig Knudstorp curtailed the company's over-expansion -- at one point, Lego had "built its own video games company from scratch, the largest installation of Silicon Graphics supercomputers in northern Europe, despite having no experience in the field." And he also encouraged the company to interact with its fans on the internet -- for example, the crowdsourcing of Ninjago content -- while the company enjoyed new popularity with Mindstorms kits for building programmable Lego robots.

7 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Everything is awesome? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not really, I miss the old Lego, before they tried to make nothing but branded and licensed parts that sell well because of their associated content.

    1. Re:Everything is awesome? by jonwil · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As someone who has many thousands of LEGO pieces (old and new) and just spent all weekend at a big LEGO exhibition as an exhibitor, I can tell you that you clearly dont know anything about LEGO if you think that all they make is overpriced licensed crap.

      You need to check out sets like the 10255 Assembly Square, 42055 Bucket Wheel Excavator, 10194 Emerald Night, 10210 Imperial Flagship and 70751 Temple of Airjitzu. None of these sets are licensed and all of them are full of useful parts (including basic bricks and things).

      If all you want is basic simple generic parts then the Classic line has boxes full of bricks, wheels, windows, doors, roof pieces and other "simple" parts.

      Oh and if you think that all the licensed sets are crap, you clearly haven't seen sets like the 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, 75827 Ghostbusters Firehouse Headquarters or 10179 Ultimate Collectors Series Millennium Falcon.

    2. Re:Everything is awesome? by Carewolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not really, I miss the old Lego, before they tried to make nothing but branded and licensed parts that sell well because of their associated content.

      Actually they have less special parts now. It was one of the things they fixed during the turn-around. They have licensed models, but fewer special parts.

    3. Re:Everything is awesome? by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...Nobody wants to build anything from parts anymore...

      You're speaking to the generation who made the creator of Minecraft a billionaire.

      "Last year Lego sold 75bn bricks."

      Sure as hell sounds like a lot of parts to me.

    4. Re:Everything is awesome? by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I envy you for your spare time.

      But even more that your parents didn't get a hold of your Lego and gave it away. *sniff*

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. $$$ / hr by kaur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In dollars per hours played, Legos are dirt cheap.

    I have 3 kids, boys & girls.
    I count about 10000 hours total played.
    Mostly emergent gameplay with existing bricks, not buying & assemblying new sets.

  3. Turn Around by oshkrozz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Although mentioned in passing that Lego is a private company, that very fact is what has kept them around for so long. The customers of Lego are the actual people that buy the products and services, not the boardroom. This has given them far more flexibility then quarterly earning reports would.