Subject:
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Re: Nicely now. What do you think of the new colors?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego, lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 16 Jan 2004 05:00:46 GMT
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There have been a lot of posts to this thread already. I won’t repeat the many
different reasons given why this color change has personal negative impact to
folks, except to say that I agree with them all as valid. I will be personally
negatively impacted in just about every way mentioned (building, sorting, curb
appeal of models, etc, etc, etc), and I wish the color change hadn’t happened.
But it did.
I wish LEGO would change them back.
But they probably won’t.
Now, if you look back over the years at my posts regarding the company, you’ll
see that I tend to say “they did X for business reasons”, “they’re running a
business here”, “what are the numbers for that” and on and on and on.
I may not have liked Bionicle etc but I could see why, from a numbers
perspective. it made sense. Regardless of whether we are 1% or 2% or 10%, it
made sense, because the mundanes wanted it, and wanted it bad. Witness the sales
figures bandied about.
What has me totally baffled here is that I can’t fathom how this particular
change could have been analysed as a good idea by anyone. Ahui said it nicely...
this change may well be an HBR case study some day on what not to do when
thinking about product changes.
I would love to see the business case for it, as I expect I’d be able to pick
many many holes in it quite easily. (business cases are something I do deal with
on a more infrequent basis recently than back when I was at CTP, but I still
know them well)
I know I’ll never see it though, that’s just the way it is... but nevertheless,
I am sure that the gain in sales due to brighter, more aligned grays, (if
any!!!!), is going to be way offset by the increase in complaints and loss of
sales from the mundanes.
We all (well, many of us) are making noise about how this is going to change our
buying habits. And that may be true enough but it’s not the big number in the
negative business case I’ve built up in my head. The bigger number is the loss
of enthusiasm that we may be about to experience. A year from now if we aren’t
doing as many shows, aren’t talking up the product as much, aren’t defending it
when we’re in the aisles and the mundanes are making product decisions, that’s
the bigger number. I think our influence on others is worth more to the company
than our direct sales.
But even that, bad as it is, isn’t the biggest number. The biggest number will,
I think, come from the mundanes themselves without any positive or negative
influence necessary from us. I just don’t think they are as undiscerning as the
marketroids that came up with this change think they are. They are going to
realise something is wrong, not be able to put their finger on exactly what, and
they will return product or just not buy it at all. I think that’s going to be
true even if every one of us tried to defend the decision to them every chance
we got, out there in the trenches. (er, aisles)
And THAT’s what is going to cost LEGO a lot, I think. Returns are not cheap,
they can cost a company more than the margin on several sales of the returned
item, not even considering the knockon effect of lost orders when Target and
WalMart decide that the extra return rate is impacting their margin and the lost
sales are impacting their turn rate so they better scale their buys back.
This decision has seriously shaken my faith in the middle management team at
LEGO.
It is just such an irrational decision, in my view. No amount of spin about
color brightening or consumer focus groups holds any water with me. Someone
somewhere messed up and now the company is in a corner and can’t change back
without blowing even MORE money than they blew on the change in the first place.
(think about the horrific cost that would be entailed in changing back)
And that’s the saddest thing... LEGO have made a really dumb decision at a time
when they need to be smart. Really smart.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Nicely now. What do you think of the new colors?
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| It's only a couple of weeks in the new year, and it looks like it's going to be an interesting 2004! I have a request, but before I go any further, let me say that personally, I understand the concerns surrounding the color changes. I know many of (...) (20 years ago, 15-Jan-04, to lugnet.lego, lugnet.general, FTX) !!
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