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Jake McKee wrote:
> No problem! But it's a good example of having some faith that we aren't just the
> money grubbing fools that people expect us to be because we're a company.
> Companies aren't just big, cold, faceless organizations. Companies aren't
> inherently evil, they're groups of people trying to do best they can in business
> and in life. (At LEGO, more life than I've ever seen at any company, ever)
Dear Jake,
I would never attribute an action to malice if it can easily be
explained by blunt stupidity ;-)
Honestly, in the last years, the TLC management has made a lot of plain
stupid decisions, and some quite good. And with plain stupid I really
mean stupid, i.e. lauthingly obvious mistakes. Just for the record, I'm
listing the more obvious ones:
Take Spybotics & similar sets: TLC wants kidproof quality stuff, so each
of the electronic single use black boxes for these projects come with
heavy investments in R&D, just to save a few cents in the end product. A
generic (and therefor more Lego-like) solution would have been the use
of the RCX for all kinds of programmable systems, thereby spreading the
calculated R&D and all the support costs over a larger number of lots.
Taking into account that the plain material and production costs of an
RCX are nearly neglectable (I'd daresay that a competent production
facility could build an RCX for about US$10-15 apiece, testing
included), this would have spread the influx of R&D costs over larger
numbers, which could propably negate the factor of having more different
parts in the set, besides giving the customer a way better and more
Lego-ish product. (Spybotics have been scrapped)
Take Duplo vs. Explore: When this "Explore" stuff popped up to replace
Duplo, my first idea was that TLC had to remove the Duplo brand name for
some stupid legal reason. It can't be a sane business decision to burn
an established brand with such a high recognition rate for the sake of
change alone. Parents who had Duplo as kids are astonished to hear that
Duplo is no more, and, when presented with an "Explore" box, tend to
say: But that IS Duplo! (Duplo is Duplo again)
Take Clothing: Among the Dumbest Things(TM) I've seen with a LEGO tag is
kiddies clothing. Again, if you want the customer to experience the
quality Lego was once known for, and you don't have the experience
in-house, you're either bound to make all the experiences yourself
(which can easily hurt ones renown), or you have to buy good external
experience (and boy, they usually charge!). Plus, a lot of external
production capacity must be paid for. (Clothes have been scrapped, AFAIK)
Take Galidor: My first contact with Galidor was the "Random piece of the
Day" at Peeron, which sported a Galidor leg (or arm, I don't really
remember). I investigated to see those Galidor figures and my first idea
was that TLC has finally lost it. In times of crisis, stick to what you
can do best, and if you want to expand, expand into the unexplored (like
with Bionicle), and not right into the turf of the big boys. I consider
it common sense that if one wants to beat Barbie or He-Man, one would be
better of if selling a better product cheaper than with selling a worse
product at propably higher prices. Alas, common sense is no longer
taught at business schools. (Galidor has been scrapped)
Take the new colours: Making a change to a core parameter of a system,
then call it improvement, then saying our main customer group will not
notice it anyway, than the complete absense of marketing of something
initially thought as an improvement, while stubbornly sticking to a
decision which has only lead to an outcry of rage and calls for
boycott... (OK, I stop here, there have been enought rants about this).
Take the Shop at Home Exclusives: It's nice to know that in a corner of
the internet there is a site that sells the really interesting sets to
customers in a few selected countries. Most potential customers will
never know about this secluded corner. Take grandparents, for example.
The typical granny hunting for a present for grandson/-daughter will go
to a shop to make a purchace decision. Some of them just pick their
stuff at random form different brands, some pick them from a selection
on the recipients wishlist. I can hardly see a grandmother shopping
gifts at Shop at Home. I personally dislike online shopping (despite
being on the internet for nearly 15 years now, i.e. since before there
was a "web", so one could hardly call me a technophobe), as I want to
see the box, see the model, pay for it cash and take it home at once,
instead of seperating the shopping and the "having" experience by
purchasing it online and waiting for a delivery. The main contact, the
primary exposure of a brand or physical product is still the classic
brick-and-mortar shop, and, judging from the ever decreasing shelf space
for Lego sets in the shops around here, this contact will be lost in the
next few years.
So there have been a lot of blunt, obviously stupid decisions so far.
Mistakes can always happen, that's human. But the topics I listed were
not just mistakes, they were really stupid mistakes which should not
happen to professionals.
On the positive side there is the opening of Lego to the adult customers
(which I considered long overdue). Big thanks to you and Kate to be our
contact persons. Another big, big plus is the opening of brand stores,
which finally make some of the S@H-exclusives available to those people
who dislike or -trust online shopping. Another big plus is the concept
of the Pick-A-Brick walls (although the selection could be bigger and
better).
I sincerely hope that - with KKK at the helm - things will change for
the better.
Now, back to the topic: No, I don't consider Lego "evil". This is not
the reason why I suspected TLC to suppress negative reactions on the
boards. But after those business decisions in the last years I wouldn't
put it past TLC to pull such a stunt to vindicate the colour change out
of sheer "We Are The Managers, We Know All, You Know Nothing" stupidity.
As I said, I take your word for the content neutrality (a view which
held, as far as I followed the discussion boards), and offer my
apologies to those reviewers I may have offended.
Yours, Chrstian Treczoks
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In lugnet.lego, Christian Treczoks wrote:
> Take Spybotics & similar sets: TLC wants kidproof quality stuff, so each
> of the electronic single use black boxes for these projects come with
> heavy investments in R&D, just to save a few cents in the end product. A
> generic (and therefor more Lego-like) solution would have been the use
> of the RCX for all kinds of programmable systems, thereby spreading the
> calculated R&D and all the support costs over a larger number of lots.
> Taking into account that the plain material and production costs of an
> RCX are nearly neglectable (I'd daresay that a competent production
> facility could build an RCX for about US$10-15 apiece, testing
> included), this would have spread the influx of R&D costs over larger
> numbers, which could propably negate the factor of having more different
> parts in the set, besides giving the customer a way better and more
> Lego-ish product. (Spybotics have been scrapped)
The RCX as-is would have looked hideous when tossed in with the sleek color
schemes of the Spybotics sets (speaking as someone who was thrilled to see black
gears finally see production, as well as trans-purple Bohrok eyes, I love the
color schemes enough to have bought three for the non-electronic parts).
Perhaps a good compromise (from our viewpoint) would have been to redesign the
RCX-terior, but leave the guts relatively unchanged (beyond any physical layout
adjustments that might have been necessary). New and simpler software
(essentially whatever they loaded into the Spybotics modules to begin with)
would have answered the problem of handing over an RCX to younger kids who were
more interested in running the intended missions, but allowing the full RCX
software package to be loaded in would have satisfied the Mindstorms crowd, as
well as offering the possibility of advancing interested kids to the next level.
The downside would have probably been a $30-50 jump in price, which would have
been the point where most store chains wouldn't have even carried the line to
begin with, and the line would failed even worse with the target market, but
might have seen a significant jump in business from the hardcore Mindstorms
crowd.
> It can't be a sane business decision to burn an established brand with such
> a high recognition rate for the sake of change alone.
My understanding is that the TECHNIC name was dropped from packaging
specifically because they had themes that were crossing the system boundaries
(most notably the Racers theme, and to a lesser extent, Star Wars), and they
wanted the themes to appear more unified than presenting them with multiple
systems allowed. I suspect that the idea behind dropping the DUPLO name was
like-minded, where they wanted the expanded EXPLORE theme, but they didn't want
to have some things be released as EXPLORE/DUPLO, while others were just
EXPLORE.
> Parents who had Duplo as kids are astonished to hear that Duplo is no more,
> and, when presented with an "Explore" box, tend to say: But that IS Duplo!
Therein lies the biggest problem. Parents and grandparents would have kept
buying DUPLO product hand over fist in 2003 if they'd known what to look for,
but all they know to look for is that familiar little DUPLO logo. It's like if
Coke was renamed "Shizzle Pop" and the Coca-Cola Company never bothered to
inform the public. Pretty soon they'd lose a lot of business to the other
brands.
> (Duplo is Duplo again)
And TECHNIC is TECHNIC again...for basic non-themed stuff (though the showroom
booklet lists them as Make & Create "Technical Wonders". BIONICLE, Racers, and
(if they ever release more of them) Star Wars product will not sport the TECHNIC
logo on their boxes, but the four non-themed TECHNIC sets this year should. One
thing to note, however, is that some of the DUPLO product is too close to
release for the packaging to be redesigned (I think this is pretty much limited
to the Dora the Explorer batch), so they'll still end up shipping under the
EXPLORE logo.
> (Clothes have been scrapped, AFAIK)
Not t-shirts, from the looks of things. There's a new Metru Nui-themed t-shirt
listed both online and in the S@H catalog. Of course, t-shirts are t-shirts,
and all you really have to do is bulk-purchase them from a quality manufacturer
and stick your design on them (or have them delivered with the design already
added). All you need at that point is a good purchasing agent and a graphic
design team, and those are integral to the company already.
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Purple Dave wrote:
> The RCX as-is would have looked hideous when tossed in with the sleek color
> schemes of the Spybotics sets [...]
Yes, but putting a different cover/box/whatever onto the existing design
wouldn't change the interior. There is no natural law for RCXs to be
yellow/grey forever.
> > (Clothes have been scrapped, AFAIK)
> Not t-shirts, from the looks of things.
OK, T-shirts and baseball caps as simple promotional items are a
different thing, though. I was talking about real clothing, trousers,
coats, etc. where Lego had a whole collection of.
Yours, Christian
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