Subject:
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Re: Holy Mackerel! LEGO survey...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general, lugnet.lego
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Date:
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Wed, 20 Apr 2005 07:11:24 GMT
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Viewed:
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7508 times
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In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
> * Would you buy LEGO toys for children 0-11? Y/N
No.
> * Why / Why not?
I only know one 0--11-year-old, and he already gets as much Lego as he
should from his father. If, hypothetically, I did need to buy a toy for a
kid (any age) it would be Lego.
> * What feature(s) would you add if you were the marketing director of
> LEGO?
A mini catalog in every small Lego set.
A medium size catalog in every Lego set at the $10 or more price point.
There has not been a new medium catalog since 2003. This is absurd.
When I was a kid, I spent hours poring over the Lego catalogs. I
collected all of them, even multiple copies of the same catalog. I could
identify almost every set in them by name, even in themes about which I
didn't care. I would create want lists on my father's typewriter,
consisting largely of Lego set names[1], and post them on the
refridgerator---because I knew about the sets from those catalogs. If the
set was in stores, but not in the catalog, I wouldn't know about it. If
set was in the S@H catalog, but not in the in-set catalog, I probably
wouldn't know about it (and almost certainly wouldn't buy it)[2].
Because of the catalog, I knew about the whole intended progression of
Lego development from DUPLO to simple BASIC to advanced BASIC to LEGOLAND
to TECHNIC and Model Team. I had access to great catalogs like 1986
http://library.brickshelf.com/scans/catalogs/1986/c86nl-2/index.html
that had clear, well-lit pictures of each set, would show cool scenes that
could be built out of enough sets and bricks, and even clued me into the
ability to buy addional elements straight from TLG via the mini S@H
catalog in the back. This catalog even showed that TLG respected its
customers enough to make a different catalog for each country, instead of
throwing one, largely text-free and thus uninformative, catalog at all of
Anglo-America (or the entire western hemisphere?).[3]
TLC showers me with five or more different S@H catalogs a year---catalogs
that, because of their frequency, offer very small marginal increases in
product offerings (and, hence, interest from me) but at the same time TLC
won't give the average consumer a chance to learn about its products by
including a much smaller and cheaper catalog with the sets for which
people have already paid money.
> * How would you change existing LEGO products if you wanted to sell them
> for more money?
Make them high-tech and "cool" and market them exclusively through The
Sharper Image. Granted, that would mean laying off all but a handful of
existing employees and reducing sales to the order of thousands of units,
but Lego is already high-priced; it can be a mass-market toy that competes
with the competition on price and has an advantage in quality, or it can
be an expensive niche product for adults with more money than brains.
> * What new products would you launch?
From at least the 1970s through the Max and Tina Creator sets of the early
2000s, Lego produced Universal/BASIC/FreeStyle/Creator/whatever sets that
included a mix of basic elements and more specialized pieces like doors,
windows, wheels, and generic figures, together with instructions or idea
books to build structures, vehicles, etc. for the figures. These sets
were interesting to play with on their own, and filled in gaps in LEGOLAND
(as the basis for houses and generic town buildings). They especially
provided appealing sets for girls[4]. Since 2001, there have been an
astonishing number of SKUs[5] in the Creator line
http://makeashorterlink.com/?H5C365CEA
(and the Designer line). . .of bricks. Only 4406 and 4407 (which are
overpriced and conspicuously lack minifigs) harken back to the older idea
of FreeStyle semi-specialized figure-oriented elements mixed with bricks;
the rest are oriented toward building brick-built figures, animals, etc.
Many say "Rah-rah, this is Lego's core concept", but those sets leave me
cold---and would have left me cold as an eight-year-old. As an adult, I
buy them---*to provide parts to use with my minifigs*. I certainly
wouldn't buy them for a kid, unless said kid could use them similarly.
So I would release at least a few generic, minifig-based sets like 4128 or
4151.
> * What should LEGO be doing that it isnt now?
Making themes permanent.
I've said it before, and I'll no doubt say it again: if the Ninja
interregnum had come ten years earlier, I would have gone into my dark
ages five years sooner and might never have come back. After a few early
space sets, I was Castle all the way. As a nine-year-old, I lacked the
imagination to consider buying set 805 or to realize that, indeed, all
other themes are spare parts for Castle. If TLG had not been willing to
sell me Castle, I would have simply redirected more of my parents' money
to Transformers and Construx.
I believe interest in one or two themes to be common among heavy Lego
users. You may be able to hook a kid into buying a few Orient Expedition
sets, but if, when the next Christmas or birthday comes around, those sets
or similar sets are not on the shelves the kid will be upset that he can't
expand his usable collection. To get a single new purchase out of him you
will have to hook him all over again on Alpha Team Arctic---until he
figures out that that, too, will be gone in six months, and gives up on
Lego in disgust. Is it coincidence that the two strongest Lego themes,
Star Wars and Bionicle, are also the two longest-lived of current themes?
--
TWS Garrison
Remove caps in address to reply.
[1] Okay, "Cash" was always the first item on the list. . .but the only
thing I remember doing with cash before high school was putting it in the
bank and taking it out to buy Lego.
[2] I have three S@H catalogs from my childhood (a time with eight years
of much Lego acquisition). I don't remember ever asking for or getting
anything out of any of them.
[3] As TLC did when they last deigned to inform their customers of their
products in catalogs of the early 2000s.
[4] Look at a kids' play area at a train show some time---the girls will,
half the time, tend to build houses and role-play with the figures.
[5] Consider that most retailers have, at most, two sizes of buckets and a
tub on the shelves; generic buckets of generic bricks have no reason to be
phased out and replaced (and 4105 has, indeed, been going strong for
years). In light of that, the number of different buckets and tubs
released over the last three years is astonishing.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Holy Mackerel! LEGO survey...
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| All, I know that some of you have attempted to fill out the survey announced yesterday on LEGOfan.org, only to be turned away with a message about the survey being complete. After some late night phone calls and early morning emails, I've been to (...) (20 years ago, 16-Apr-05, to lugnet.general, lugnet.lego) !!
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