Subject:
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Re: Improving the adult image of LEGO
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:24:14 GMT
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Viewed:
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10674 times
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In lugnet.general, David Eaton wrote:
> I'm not sure that's really a fair assessment-- or, rather, the tone implies
> that everyone else at Lego was clueless until Jake showed them how it's
> done. But that's not really the case.
>
> I think it was more true that certain groups within the company (Jake being
> one of the ones we're the most familiar with) started to understand that the
> adult community would be worth MARKETING to. And a few groups understood
> how to do it, while others didn't. Adult fans were clearly known to the
> company already. They even gave Gary Istok a quick mention in the
> _World_Of_LEGO_Toys_ book, which came out in 1987. And that was a good 6
> years before the alt.toys.lego newsgroup appeared online, and LONG before
> there was as substantial of an adult presence in the hobby.
But that's exactly the point. It's not that they weren't aware of us at all.
It's that they thought we were an inconsequencial fraction of the total market,
and thus not worth catering to at all. And strictly in terms of the total
customer base, that's very likely true. When you start to consider one AFOL who
spends upwards of $1000 per year vs. one child who might receive the odd $10
LEGO set as a gift, those assumptions don't really square up. When you consider
how the much-lamented "juniorization" lines up with the period of time in which
The LEGO Company had not one but _two_ years that showed a net annual loss
(something which not even the color change managed to do), it speaks to the fact
that they need to develop their product with both halves of their market base in
mind.
Now, you can say that there are other individuals within the combined employee
base that were instrumental in getting this change in mindset to occur, and a
year ago I probably would have agreed. But then I watched that video of a
presentation Jake did after leaving to start his own company. Two key things
stood out. One was the "80-20" rule, where his favorite company lawyer said
that 20% of the time they get someone who asks a question, gets a simple answer,
and goes back to whence they came. The other 80% of the time was Jake. Not
people _like_ Jake. Just Jake. Asking questions that really challenged the
status quo, rather than simply asking how to make sure he was conforming to it.
The other thing that stood out was the time he said he took three key people to
what I'm guessing was Brickfest. One was said lawyer (who was flipping out
about all the blatant trademark violations and such), one was Kjeld Kirk (who
was geeked about the idea of doing _more_ events like that), and the third was
the marketing director (who couldn't even figure out what he was seeing). So
again, it's not that they weren't aware of us, it was that they'd simply
dismissed us as not being an important demographic. We are. We're not _the_
important demographic by any means, but in many ways we're closer to both
demographics than they are. We _are_ one of the two major demographics, and
with all the shows that AFOLs do around the world, we're likely in regular
direct contact with the other one more than anyone within the company.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Improving the adult image of LEGO
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| (...) Honestly, my impression of the Lego hobbyist community is that there was a boom in growth of AFOL purchasing around 1998-2000. My honest-to-god guess is that AFOLs weren't worth marketing to back in, say, 1992, but we WERE worth marketing to (...) (16 years ago, 18-Sep-08, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Improving the adult image of LEGO
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| (...) I'm not sure that's really a fair assessment-- or, rather, the tone implies that everyone else at Lego was clueless until Jake showed them how it's done. But that's not really the case. I think it was more true that certain groups within the (...) (16 years ago, 15-Sep-08, to lugnet.general)
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