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 19:43:37 GMT
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In lugnet.dear-lego, Christian Treczoks wrote:
> Their big advantage is that they still do decent and cheap sets, that
> they have quite high quality standards and address customer complains
> very quickly, and, listen up, Lego, you can easily order any available
> part in any quantity for a reasonable price. They even publish their
> parts numbers in the instructions and leaflets to make this easier.
I've actually been paying attention to Playmobil recently. Does anyone know how
they're doing financially? Both Lego and Playmobil cater to a similar audience
(although Lego tries to reach a broader age-range), so I'd expect that if there
really is a problem in the toy industry in general, Playmobil would be reacting
similarly to Lego.
I actually think the biggest problem with Lego is that it started becoming more
of a regular toy (action figures & playsets) rather than a generic building toy.
Generic building toys have always had a little niche market-- nothing huge, but
it's always been there.
Regular toys absolutely dominate the market, but are highly fad-driven. Who'da
thought that Pokemon would catch on, but Galidor wouldn't? There's a fine line
between what kids love and what they find boring. And time after time it's been
proven that it's incredibly difficult to test kids for a toy that'll really
catch on.
The building toy market is different though-- kids will *build* what they love,
NOT what they find boring. So it's sort of an escape clause. If you can provide
a toy that has the potential to *become* something kids will love, it'll always
have some success. It'll never be as popular as the big fads, but there will
always be a market for it.
How many of us as children built fad toys out of Lego? I remember building
Transformers, Star Wars, and M*A*S*K things out of Lego, either because I didn't
own the "actual" toy, or because I was coming up with something new that fit
into those genres. Lego was generic enough to build any of these. And just about
any other fad toy out there.
But nowadays, the focus is on becoming more like Mattel or Hasbro. The marketing
for an Alpha Team set is that it's an Alpha Team set. Not that it's Lego. Each
character is built up so you know exactly who the bad guy is, who the brainy guy
is, who the hulking macho-man is, etc. Same goes with Harry Potter, Johnny
Thunder, the new Knights' Kingdom, Star Wars, Spider Man, etc. Kids aren't
encouraged to want them because it's Lego-- they're encouraged to want them
because they're some action-packed toy.
Compare Playmobil. A playmobil character is fantastically generic, much in the
same way that a minifig from the 80's was. A playmobil policeman could be the
brainy one, the macho one, an evil one, a dumb one, whatever. He's whatever a
child can imagine. But "Crunch" will always be "Crunch". So a child can pick up
a playmobil set, and imagine whatever s/he wants. But a modern Lego set is
telling the child from the get-go exactly what this toy should be.
Lego's wandered into this direction as far back as the 70's. With the advent of
LegoLand, sets were very much sold as a particular model. Set 611 is a police
car, and marketed as a police car. Set 497 is a space ship, and is marketed as a
space ship. In the late 80's and early 90's it went a bit further. 6986 Isn't
just a space ship-- it's a Space Police ship. 6082 isn't just a castle, it's a
Dragon Master's castle. And today, we not only get things like a specific theme,
but we're told a lot more about who each character is, and what the
vehicle/building is for. And not only that, but there's a lot *less* focus on
alternate models, which encourage kids to take sets apart and re-build them,
rather than just leave it as the advertised model.
Nowadays I go into the store to buy Lego, and I don't hear parents say "Oh, my
kid wants Lego", they say "My kid loves the Harry Potter sets", or whatever the
theme of the day is. It's almost as though one Lego set/theme relates in no way
whatsoever to another, the same as a Barbie, which has nothing to do with Hot
Wheels, even though they're both made by Mattel. Lego is advertising itself as
less of a system and more of independant systems.
Lego's strong point in the past was that all its products focused on their
flexibility and consistancy of the system. An investment in Lego was an
investment in whatever your child could imagine, no matter what set or theme you
bought.
The trick is to find that happy medium between too generic and too specific. Too
generic isn't flashy enough to be interesting, and too specific doesn't
encourage imagination. Personally, I think Playmobil's got it nearly spot-on.
Ideally I'd love to see Lego go to that level of genericness, which probably is
about the level they were at back in the 80's.
But on that note, I've been absolutely overjoyed with the designer sets. A great
(maybe even a bit too generic) series of sets that show off the Lego system, and
not just a certain model or two. If these are a sign of what's to come, I really
think Lego may be going back to what it does best-- Not being a huge toy giant
who's the best name brand with families, but being a steady company who can
always be trusted for making a timeless building toy.
DaveE
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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| (...) Great post! I completely agree. (...) Yeah, I thought the Designer sets were the best thing Lego's done in a few years. I hope they are doing well, and I hope they will create designer sets in more themes as time goes on. (20 years ago, 11-May-04, to lugnet.dear-lego)
| | | Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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| "David Eaton" <deaton@intdata.com> wrote in message news:HxKEsp.tHy@lugnet.com... (...) know how (...) audience (...) there (...) reacting (...) <Snip some exellent points> (...) I agree with you totally on this . I think one of the reasons the (...) (20 years ago, 13-May-04, to lugnet.dear-lego)
| | | Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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| (...) I mostly agree with your post, but you omit to mention that Crunch isn't always gonna be crunch... It can be a pair of legs for another Minifig, a torso with different arms for a spec. ops. cop in your city, a head for a thief in your castle (...) (20 years ago, 13-May-04, to lugnet.dear-lego)
| | | Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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| Not only is Playmobil creatively generic, but the boxes only picture the contents in a variety of ways. The pictures, as they say, speak a thousand words. I find myself saddled with a huge LEGO collection, but often wishing I had invested the money (...) (20 years ago, 13-May-04, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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| (...) Well, around here, Playmobil has about two or three times the shelf space than Lego has. And it sells well, because the size/price-ratio is way better than Lego (even if one takes the differences in scale into account). Their big advantage is (...) (20 years ago, 11-May-04, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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