Subject:
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Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Tue, 11 May 2004 07:14:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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5025 times
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In lugnet.dear-lego, Rocco J. Carello wrote:
> > In my mind, this actually raises another important question... should TLC
> > even TRY to be "trendy"?
<snip>
No, it shouldn't. I ran a survey just recently as part of my Year 11 Maths
studies course (last year, i'm in year 12 now) which ascertained that if people
are going to give up lego, they will do it at about 7-9 years of age. This is
exactly when kids are getting into "trendy" stuff, but then they learn that it's
too hard to keep up with (I know, I got involved in pokemon and got badly burnt
as a result), and go back to lego. Most of the year 12s that enjoy lego in my
school are of the nerdy variety, and that is where lego's niche has always been,
always will be. i have a saying, I may have picked it up from somewhere, "You
cannot make someone do something they do not want to do, no matter how hard you
try". I stick by this. Our robotics group started again last week, great to see
some familiar faces! I don't try and recruit others though, because they have
their interests, sport, girls, etc. (Having said that, yes, I do have a
girlfriend, we are very happy :) )
> Growing up, there was GI Joe and Transformers. Then they both went away. Then
> there was teenage mutant Ninja turtles. Then they went away. Then there were
> power rangers and other things I don't even know about, and they faded away,
> then GI Joe and transformers came back and nobody buys them. Then turtles came
> back... etc. Through all of that, Lego has always been there. Lego has been
> around for decades. Lego is not supposed to be a trendy toy. It is a classic
> toy, one of those things that are timeless.
Exactly, I could not have put it better if I tried. I have had Lego since
forever. I started playing with DUPLO when I was 4 months old! Last year, before
all of the not-to-be-mentioned-topic crises started,I made a vow to stick with
Lego until my deathbed. I still stand by that oath, but I do wish Lego would see
the error of their ways. I dearly loved the 1990's kits, and my fave kit of all
time is the Black Aeroplane (can't remember number, sorry), technic, circa
1997ish. It was perfect, but even then it cost $150 AU (I think,i'm not sure if
it was on sale or not). Prices are a tad high, to say the least. I remember when
our local Myer centre had one house-sized room on the 3rd floor with floor to
ceiling Lego, wall to wall (I probably should have bought the snowspeeder when
it was available - D'oh! :) ). Now it is a very small corner right up on the
fifth floor. why did most department stores put Lego at the back of their toy
departments? Because for people to get to them, they had to wade through the
other toys, and I still used to see people going straight there! the reason for
this shrinkage? People only buy Lego if it is on SALE!, 25-50% off this week
only!, and stores can't get rid of it, so they order less, it takes less shelf
space, they still sell the same amount, and everyone (except TLC) is happy. It
cannot be that hard to reduce the cpp to around 4-5c pp, when the manufacturing
cost is about 1.5cpp!
> In the trendy toy market, TLC hit once and missed 3 times. Regardless of how
> profitable Bionicle is, those profits were probably destroyed by all of the
> misses.
Agreed, I could ask some of my friends who are doing econ about this, but
selling 10 kits for $10 each is better than selling 1 kit for $25. Bionicle sold
so well because it was really cheap. People will look at a $25 price tag and
think, hmm, I could buy some extra groceries this week, or some school books and
pens etc for that! whereas people will look at a $10 kit and think, hmm, right,
I'll buy that!!! Yep, mine mine mine mine mine! (BTW, I was the only person to
buy a Williams from Myers in the city as far as I know - there were 5 on the
shelf. Let me see, if each if those williams had cost $100 instead of $220,
profit = $500 for selling 5 (they would have sold very fast) or $220 for selling
1. Umm, you do the math :) )
> Speaking of Bionicle. I read a story once, perhaps here on Lugnet, about a
> father who bought a Bionicle set for his son on Christmas. His son had wanted
> it, so his father gave in and got it for him. Then his son opened the package
> and looked disappointed because it was in a bunch of pieces. "You mean I have to
> put this together? Dad, can you do it for me?"
I remember that one.
> That should have turned on a burning red warning beacon in Denmark. As soon as
> TLC began selling a product that kids "didn't want to put together", they should
> have realized that it should not say LEGO on the package.
Indeed. People will buy model cars etc if they want something stationary to put
together. People will buy action figures if they want something to throw around.
Bionicle is neither good looking enough to have as a complete model permamently,
nor sturdy enough to throw around. (having said that, I type this with Kopaka
Nuva on my desk, the only bionicle I feel is worthy to retain that position.
also the only one I ever bought)
>
> > Lego is a toy that takes imagination, creativity and PATIENCE. Although
> > many kids today ("today's kids") do not have enough of an attention span
> > where Lego would appeal to them, there are still many who DO. And are
> > "today's kids" realy so different from "yesterday's kids"? I grew up in
> > the 1970s and 1980s with a lot of kids who thought "Legos" were stupid,
> > uncool toys for nerds.
It is, isn't it? :D Just kidding, I'm pretty popular at school. Someone (they
shall remain unnamed) decided that my Lego building made me less popular. I
challenged him to first a math contest, then a straight out race (200m). I won
both. Lego isn't necessarily for nerds, it's just that the "cool" clique have
decided that to play with Lego is to be really stupid and "uncool"
Being a teen gives me something of an interesting perspective. I can see why
people stop using the child within (they start chasing girls) and why Lego is
not really a good thing to be marketing to teens. Technic will keep people in
for longer, but unless they discover their old collection when they are
20-25ish, they miss the boat (This doesn't apply to most of you, I know, it's
just a general thing)
> I know there are some bright kids out there. Last fall, I saw a Lego >Mindstorms
> competition where a bunch of 4th - 9th grade students had put together and
> programmed robots to perform tasks in an obstacle course. In each class of 30
> students, there may have been 3-6 kids who were doing this. That would mean > at
> least 10-20% of all kids in school do have the intelligence, creativity, and
> patience to enjoy Lego.
Maybe. We had the robocup state challenge last year, over 300 students attended
(admittedly, I was the oldest one there, but still) from all over the state. It
was a lot of fun, I expect we will be seeing them again. Some of the people
there were exceptionally bright
> Now, what toy company would not (want) a toy that 10-20% of all kids will be into for 6
> or more years of their life? That is probably about how Lego was selling in the
> 80s. Back then, your typical department store would have an entire aisle for
> Lego - left and right, floor to ceiling. The success didn't come from making a
> trendy toy that 40% of the kids liked for a couple years and gave up on. It was
> by selling to 10-20% but keeping that 10-20% for a long time. Or, in the case of
> some, for a lifetime.
Precisely.
> Lots of Lego was selling back in the 80s. An insane amount. Lego would be passed
> down to children by parents and siblings who had played with Lego when they were
> growing up. TLC would have never run out of customers had they stuck with
> whatever they had been doing. By the early 90s, it had been working for 30 solid
> years and they had a strong customer base. In the latter half of the 90s, when
> parents and older siblings went to buy toys for younger kids, they looked at the
> Lego offerings and they were puzzled. "What is this? Where are the regular
> parts? Why does it cost so much?"
Or in the case of my Mum, "what happened to the bricks? Why are there all of
these stupid 1 stud pieces around?" Actual quote.
> An iceberg lies ahead, but there is still time to steer the ship. They need to
> salvage their operation and get back to doing what Lego is supposed to be doing
> before their shelf space shrinks to nothing. I haven't bought a single Lego set
> at retail this year. It's not because of new colors, it's just that the shelf
> space is so small and the set designs are so bad now that the stores haven't had
> anything that interested me.
Well, Titanic references aside, a good thing to do is apply the brake to the
overcreation of new parts, reduce the prices, and begin to include more of the
classic brick in sets. Parents are turned off (and, for that matter, so am I) by
sets that look nothing like Lego, although most would be happy to see more sets
like the sopwith camel, red baron and Wright flyer, simply because you can
actually see some studs and classic plates and bricks in the construction, but
they still look awesome! (I realise these are Lego Direct models, but is it that
hard for standard designers to be creative?)
> > Stop trying to appeal to those kids (what I have called here"today's kids")
> > and focus on those kids to whom Lego does appeal.
Absolutely. See above for ranting on this issue :)
> Exactly. I believe they would sell more in the long run if they made the kinds
> of things Lego fans want to buy. It would take a few years - maybe an entire
> generation - to build up a customer base like they had in the 80s, but it will
> pay off in the long run. The bionicle crowd is not going to remain a fan of TLC
> after bionicle crashes. They will move on to the next big thing and never look
> back.
Like what I did with pokemon, dragonball Z, many other fads (too many to name!).
This will not go on, Bionicle cannot stay popular forever.
> When that happens, will TLC try to please us fans of the brick, or will they
> continue trying to create the next trendy toy until they sink?
Or, to put it another way, will they create so much gravel and crud that it
outweighs the small gems and then the only people who buy it will be Opal
miners?
Very much my $.02, and a LOT of personal opinion
cheers, hoping for a better future for a dear company,
Matt
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Make it so"
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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| (...) Excellent! Somebody picked up on the hook I left in my last post. Growing up, there was GI Joe and Transformers. Then they both went away. Then there was teenage mutant Ninja turtles. Then they went away. Then there were power rangers and (...) (20 years ago, 11-May-04, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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