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How Lego Clicked: The Super Brand That Reinvented Itself (theguardian.com)
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.
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.
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.
they started 'Disneyfying' themselves
Man, really! Just like what Giuliani did to Times Square... Completely ruined it when they ran off the hookers
The big difference post-'03 is they started 'Disneyfying' themselves, theme parks everywhere...
There are only 6 legoland theme parks.. and 4 of them were built before '03. The remaining two opened in '11 and just '17.
The big difference post-'03 is they started 'Disneyfying' themselves, theme parks everywhere...
There are only 6 legoland theme parks.. and 4 of them were built before '03. The remaining two opened in '11 and just '17.
In my opinion, the "Disneyfying" and turnaround began with the Lego Star Wars video game in 2005. It did more, in my opinion, for the brand than anything else. Practically everyone I knew had a copy, even people who weren't big lego fans. The Star Wars co-branding, in my opinion, has been one of the biggest pieces. The Lego movies, mindstorms, etc. all add to the bottom line but it all started with the video games.
Lego still allows the user to exercise their own creativity. You might buy a Star Destroyer kit, but you can build other things with it.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
There, let me save you the trouble of reading a boring article by sharing this cool video instead, The Lego's Story : https://youtu.be/NdDU_BBJW9Y
Elok
You can buy a tub of generic blocks, a relatively big tub, for about $20. The little theme 'kits' are much more expensive. We only had generic blocks when I was a kid in the 60s.
In the late 80's I posted a warning to Alt.Home.Repair about a Sears garbage disposal that's inner coating grew and would block it from running (short version)
Two months later Sears called (phone) to set things straight.
Note: In those days we could create a finger file (which I put my phone number in). If someone fingered me, they would get that finger file. E-mail addresses at the bottom of ones post custom. A different Internet.
Yes, they're full of bacteria and stuff and washing them is a bitch.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
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.
My doctor always asks me:
'On a scale of 1 to stepping on a Lego barefooted, in how much pain are you'?
LEGO has had weapons in sets since the first Castle sets in 1978 (swords, axes and lances as well as shields and armor) and guns (muskets and pistols) since the first Pirates sets in 1989.
As for "internally developed IPs", LEGO was licensing car and truck brands as well as oil companies and others as far back as 1955. And regarding the claims that they dont make original ideas anymore and only make licensed stuff, themes like City, Creator, Elves, Friends, Nexo Knights, NinjaGo and Technic will prove you wrong on that. (and that's just the themes that have had sets released in 2017).
In terms of manufacturing, LEGO does not have any factories in Malaysia (they have a theme park there but no factories). They also don't outsource the manufacture of most of their parts or packaging processes (there are some parts that are made by 3rd parties for various reasons but most of them are made directly by LEGO in LEGO-owned factories in Denmark, China, Mexico, the Czech Republic and elsewhere) .
They also still produce hundreds of general purpose parts like bricks and roof pieces and so on alongside many more special purpose parts that can be used for other things other than the purpose they were designed for. The set I am currently building uses a part originally created as a hammer for Thor in the Super Heroes sets but uses it as an architectural detail rather than a hammer.
Too bad it's been dumbed down compared to 30 years ago. No more circuit or pneumatic diagrams, no more logic gates.
Lego Technic is the best for creativity. While they do give you instructions for a couple of models, the skills you learn when you build them are the tools you need to turn your imaginary machines into reality.
Lego kits don't take away creativity, they teach kids mechanical engineering without them realizing they are being taught anything.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The fact that they don't get properly cleaned. I've seen grime hanging on the inside of them after washing them using the method you just mentioned.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
If you want a whole bunch of fairly generic parts, you want the Classic sets in the yellow boxes.
Plenty of fairly generic parts like bricks, roof tiles, windows, doors, wheels, windscreens and other things.
True, but a lot of times, people stop at the blank canvas. Opening a word processor and staring at the cursor on the sea of white and trying to type something creative is almost impossible (it's referred to as writer's block).
The real problem is creativity strikes randomly. The author who might be stalled at the blank screen on the word processor might suddenly get inspiration in the shower and have a completely fleshed out story while the water runs. Only to find that the moment the tap turns off, it all disappears.
Instead of sitting and staring at the sheet of paper, though, trying to conjure up a story, what we need to teach is to fidget. Yes, the same energy that goes into spinning the little toy round and round is a form of creative energy. But it's unstructured. It's not conducive to "write a blog article about X" or "build me a space ship". But for a writer, it means writing down lots of crap in a stream of consciousness session that probably makes zero sense, but there you go. Or you take a box of lego, stick two of them together, add another piece, and another piece, and then you have a random thing at the end. Perhaps it then appeals to some other side of you and you get the urge to smash it, or you realize it's the start of something and work on it.
The main problem though is we've bred out these things - instead of fidgeting or even the act of "being bored" we immediately seek out our phones and play a game as an outlet to our energies. A simple act of boredom, letting the mind wander, or taking a pen and drawing circles and squares, or otherwise unstructured creative (and play) time, and we've pretty much tried to eliminate it from all aspects of our lives. Because it's unstructured, and generally not useful, but it's far easier to have a kernel to start with from such endeavors than to actually try to start writing the next great novel starting from a blank page and trying to be productive immediately.
That's why Lego and other creative tools almost never start blank - because the people playing with them almost never can do anything else until you give them some structured thing and then they let their mind wander into unstructured thinking. (E.g., you assemble some parts, see it forms something that looks like a gun even though it isn't, and start making pew-pew noises at your friend and the whole thing devolves into a finger gun fight).
The turnaround story has changed a lot over the years. They no longer talk about their failed outsourcing strategy or about how their push for extreme automation made their production lines so inflexible that they were constantly producing the wrong products.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Indeed. And Lego kits, with the exception of the tub-o'-bricks, have always been like that: you got a box with pieces and instructions for building one or two models with it. After that, you're on your own.
What is a bit different nowadays is how kids play with it. When we got a new Lego box, we'd build the model from plans once, then the bricks would disappear into a huge drawer with the rest of the Lego, to be used for building whatever took our fancy. And we learned to build a lot just by trying: spin locks, differential gears, the obligatory repeating crossbow... And every kid on our block was like that. However kids today treat Lego more like Revell kits: you build it once, then display it. Though I have no idea if that's a generational thing and if all kids arel like that, or if it's just the kids I happen to know.
Maybe what GP means is that at some point Lego introduced far too many special blocks, like A "Death Star, top left blast shield panel" brick that is pretty much only good for exactly that purpose, precluding re-use for some other design. But they have realised that mistake a good while ago, and vastly reduced the number of special bricks. And the Technic line is better than it ever was. My wife gave me a big kit for my birthday (yeah I'm spoiled...) and I was amazed at the cleverness of the design compared to the Technic kits of 30 years ago.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Don't be afraid of a few germs.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Indeed. I'd take the hookers, drug dealers, and porn shops over the tourists, costumed characters, chain stores (well, i like the M&M store), desnudas, and police with automatic weapons any day. Not to mention the disgusting assault on free speech that has occurred now, where they painted (small) boxes on the ground and said anyone performing had to stay in the lines or be arrested, making it even worse now, of course they're all people who can't afford a lawyer to challenge it.. De Blasio just following in the fine Giuliani tradition of ruining things by making them more tourist friendly.
Theres a lot of money in minecraft-like games and I'm sure notch had lego in mind (along with dwarf fortress) when he came up with the game.
I think a lot of people, even programming nerds, are missing pretty much completely that technicalities and resources dictated quite a lot of minecrafts design.
the blocks are a necessity to be able to handle it. the blocky nature and how that preserves memory and makes memory consumption of the world predictable is what makes the whole thing possible at all. it's not like it was a design aesthetic choice as such.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Lego still allows the user to exercise their own creativity. You might buy a Star Destroyer kit, but you can build other things with it.
Ain't that the truth. I rather liked this idea: http://www.thebricktestament.c...
The part about camp deification was amusing: http://www.thebricktestament.c...
The problem with legos now is you don't start with a blank sheet of paper.
The problem with computers now is you don't start with a blank sheet of paper. Pesky OS! I just expect to be dumped into BASIC!
what the company has done is give up on its core mission for profit. Which is fine. The good parents can still buy real lego sets.
It doesn't sound like they've given up on anything at all.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
Same here, definitely not rich growing up, but you could get used lego at garage/yard/tag sales, flea markets, thrift stores, auctions for almost nothing. I don't ever remember buying a new set of them, but remember getting loads of used ones.
Although honestly, Lincoln logs are where it was at for me.
Rob
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
And this is the part that MS (and a lot of other big studios) don't get: Modding support is what drives those games. There are quite a few games out there that are, let's be honest here, mediocre at best. Cheap graphics, clunky design, horrible performance, crappy AI... take whatever aspect of the game you want and it will be easy to find another game that does it better, smoother and faster.
But these games can be modded. And that means that they will get more content than ANYTHING you could produce in-house. Minecraft being one example, KSP being another. And a lot of other Indie games noticed that they can get a lot of free content and even game mechanics if they just let people code their own stuff.
Yes, that means that you can't gouge your customers with stupid, worthless addons that they can get for free. But it means that your game will sell millions and for years and years to come. Guess what makes you more money in the end.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I once knew someone who has heard of someone who saw a complete kit. But ... I know, anecdotes are no proof.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
their original goals (no weapons, internally developed IPs, doing good by their employees, etc.)
They outsourced their manufacturing and assembly plants to malaysia and similiar, gutted their American and some of their European workforce, eliminated many of their general purpose parts in exchange for special purpose parts, etc.
And technically all this stuff was already going on back in the late 90s (Star Wars LEGOs anyone?)
The big difference post-'03 is they started 'Disneyfying' themselves, theme parks everywhere, LEGO stores set up with a minimalist kid-friendly feel, local club activities to help reinforce that 'cult' feel.
They actually turned themselves around by doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of everything you just said. In the early 2000s their parts catalog ballooned with special-purpose parts, they were opening theme parks left and right, they blew their wad on all sorts of ill-thought-out side projects, and they lost their handle on their supply chain. This is where the $800 in debt and weak sales came from.
They were lucky that at the same time they started making the Star Wars sets, which provided the cash to float them through this otherwise-disasterly period. They saved themselves by really clamping down on special purpose parts, by shuttering or selling most of their theme parks, and by focusing on building a quality core brand.
They must have a design by now that doesn't hurt when you step on it and are just waiting for the right time to release it.
Their business would double overnight from everyone having to rebuy and the large number of parents that would now be ok having them in their house.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The part of the Apple comparison I was most interested in was the claim about profits. They're trying to tell us that topping $1 billion in sales (i.e. revenue) for the first time was sufficient to top Apple's profits in 2008-2010, right as the iPhone was gaining traction? I'm not buying it.
In the fourth quarter of 2009 alone, Apple posted profits of $1.67 billion on $9.87 billion in revenue, which would already be enough to top LEGO's sales numbers for the entire year. I don't see how one billion in annual sales could have resulted in LEGO topping Apple's quarterly profits, let alone their annual profits.
"It’s about discovering what’s obviously Lego, but has never been seen before."
https://www.fastcompany.com/30...
Company that sells bricks sells more bricks when they sell bricks that people want to buy.
Honestly, I should sell my services as a consultant.
As we were definitely not rich in the 90's, I can most certainly say that assertion is false. All of my kids had Lego when they were growing up in that decade, and a couple of them still play with it now as adults.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Grime does not equal bacteria. Heck if you are so concerned just soak em in Rubbing alcohol for a few minutes, or even overnight. If that doesn't penetrate the grime deep enough to kill the bacteria in question, your kids aren't going to be exposed.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Excellent documentary about the interaction of Lego user clubs and the parent company. I hope to attend a lego convention one of these years.
I'm afraid of those germs infecting my kids, yes. I might be biased because my older son had severe health issues for the first 3 years of his life, before that happened I was a lot more relaxed.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Legoland in Florida is some of the best bang for your buck of any theme park I can think of. Universal has better rides, but it's more expensive. Six Flags has longer lines, and no sense of exploration. EPCOT has the nerd factor, but is more expensive. Sea World doesn't have as many rides, and I don't like getting splashed with salt water.
This is heresy, and I beg forgiveness from my fellow AFOLs. One of my favorite sets was actually the Mega Blocks mechanized warfare set. You could make tanks and other "modern warfare" machines. They were in olive drab and everything. I also liked that they had half-height plates, which gave a different feel to things. I made the mistake of offering these to somebody in a BrickLink forum. Nearly got banned from the site. LOL.
However kids today treat Lego more like Revell kits: you build it once, then display it.
Hence the recent feature-length public service announcement not to build something according to Instructions only to freeze it in place with KRAzyGLuE.
You can read the Official Lego guidelines for cleaning lego bricks. They say not to put them in the laundry machine or dishwasher.
The problem with this from Lego point of view is they only sold one tub per family. Now they sell many sets per family
I know people have trouble with a blank canvass that us because they did not do enough free play, which Legos can be a part.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
They don't have modern day weapons.
I thought they had a bazooka in the space range, but it was apparently a video camera. I swear I never had that 2x1 flattie with the spools on it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The constructor series are great if you want something exciting (cars, robots, scorpions) out of the box but are still generic enough that you can reuse them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I grew up in the 70s, firmly middle class. This was when I thought an Atari 2600 was the toy of the wealthy. I had various sets, a few space sets, and lots of odd pieces. I remember mowing neighbors' lawns in order to get a set once.
Perhaps you're parents didn't care about you that much? Or you were really really really poor.
But hell, even the local library had a small Lego table .
That's silly . It was always the same path: Get a set, build the set as instructed. Almost immediately start modifying it more and more. Then "crash" it, and try to rebuild without the instructions. Then crash again and build variants.
Eventually it's pieces worked their way into a group of pieces.
In my opinion, the "Disneyfying" and turnaround began with the Lego Star Wars video game in 2005. It did more, in my opinion, for the brand than anything else. Practically everyone I knew had a copy, even people who weren't big lego fans. The Star Wars co-branding, in my opinion, has been one of the biggest pieces. The Lego movies, mindstorms, etc. all add to the bottom line but it all started with the video games.
I will say that this is because the game was fun, not because it was Star Wars or Lego, although being both helped. I remember being at a friends house with a group where they had it and we all played it. It was simple and fun and at least two of the people there went out and bought it because of that. I have also heard friends speak of buying the newest Lego game because they have had so much fun playing the earlier ones.