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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Mon, 19 Jan 2004 06:12:12 GMT
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"Jake McKee" <jacob.mckee@america.lego.com> wrote in message
news:HrInyA.22B1@lugnet.com...
> It's only a couple of weeks in the new year, and it looks like it's going • to be
> an interesting 2004!
[ ... snipped ... ]
> Thanks in advance for your help!
>
> Jake
>
> ---¬
> Jake McKee¬
> Community Development Manager¬
> LEGO Community Development
> ¬
For the most part, I have stayed out of the color debate. I appreciate the
opportunity to comment on this topic, I do hope TLC takes some time to
review the feedback you receive and it all doesn't end up in the proverbial
'bit bucket'.
When I first read about the color change I thought to myself "Now why would
they do that?" and "How different can it be?". Before commenting, I decided
to take a look myself and went to TRU and purchased a mini Star Destroyer.
Before leaving the parking lot of TRU I opened the package and looked at the
parts. To my eye the new dark grey color was noticably different, it had a
blue tint to it. The light grey was not as noticable and quite frankly, had
I not known it was different, I probably wouldn't have noticed until I had a
part next to an older light grey element.
At home I started to build the model when my son (who is 8) asked if he
could build it for me. I said sure and let him at it. I asked him if he
noticed anything different about it and he said non chalantly "the dark grey
is different" and kept building. He noticed it immediately however didn't
voice any opinion on it one way or another.
As I read the flurry of posts on the color change topic the only rational
conclusion I could come to as to why LEGO would replace several recolors was
based on cost. The newer colors must be cheaper to make and in an era where
many companies, TLC included, have major initiatives to reduce cost,
changing these colors could save TLC millions of dollars (it would actually
have to be 10's of millions of dollars for TLC to do this, saving a few
million has a negligible effect on TLC's bottom line).
In my mind I could see how this would play out. Imagine this conversation
between a Supply Chain Guy (SCG) and a Manufacturing Guy (MG):
SCG: You need to analyze your operation and come back with ideas on how we
can reduce costs. I need some ideas from you by the end of the week.
MG: What? I have squeezed everything I can out of my operation!
Later that week ...
SCG: So, what have you got for me?
MG: We looked around and we have automated virtually everything we can. We
have reduced the number of employees to a bare minium in order to produce
the number of bricks we are selling. We have the best possible pricing we
can get from our suppliers. About the only thing else we can do is tool up
in the Far East and we fundamentally believe that would adversely affect our
quality. I believe it would be foolish to do that.
SCG: There has to be something, go look at your operation again and get
back to me this afternoon.
MG: Well, there is this one other thing ...
SCG: Yes?
MG: We could use a different ABS forumula for some of the colors. It is
quite a bit cheaper but the bricks would be slightly different color than
those we have produced for the past 25 years.
SCG: Which colors?
MG: The greys, brown, and a few others.
SCG: How different are the colors? Would anyone notice?
MG: Oh, I am sure someone will notice but they aren't that different.
Slightly different hue.
SCG: How much could we save?
MG: In the volumes we are producing and with us getting ready to tool up
for another run of Star Wars, probably $40M - $50M a year.
SCG: That's what I am talking about. Why didn't you include that in your
report?
MG: Because for as long as I have worked here, changing colors was simply
not an option! It would be like asking if we could change the brick
geometry. It was just something we understood that TLC wouldn't change.
SCG: Yeah, true, but we're talking about a significant cost savings. Let's
get some marketing people involved and see if we should pursue it.
You can imagine a conversation like this happening at virtually any
manufacturing company (which is what TLC is, they just happen to make toys
where as Intel makes silicon). If we ever find out the real story on the
reason to change colors, I would be surprised if it is somewhat similar to
what I just outlined.
How does TLC pick focus groups? I have no idea. However, with the "What
will you make?" Roadshow which traveled around the US last summer, TLC had
about the best possible market research opportunity they could possibly hope
to have. They could have tested these colors with their most loyal (i.e.
not LUGNET AFOLs) customers - kids and families who came to the events.
I don't think the color change bothers me nearly as much as many of the
voices here on LUGNET. Granted, I don't like it and I'd prefer they had
never done it. I also fear it is highly unlikely that (a) we'll ever know
the real story and (b) they will change it back. It takes a long time to
turn a battleship, even longer if you want to turn it in a direction against
which it is already moving!
It is my belief that the people within LEGO who made this decision simply
didn't think anyone would notice. "Ah, the new colors are close enough to
the old one, no one will notice." Well, we did notice and anyone who has
been building with LEGO bricks for a while will notice too. I was surprised
to see the change credited to feedback from a focus group. Focus groups are
a tool to gather data. They should not be used for the basis of a decision.
It is also fairly easy to manipulate a focus group to get the answer you
want. If someone wants the feedback to come out that customers prefer the
new colors, you ask feedback accordingly.
But this raises a question: How does TLC pick focus groups? I have no
idea. However, with the "What will you make?" Roadshow which traveled
around the US last summer, TLC had about the best possible market research
opportunity they could possibly hope to have. They could have tested these
colors with their most loyal (i.e. not LUGNET AFOLs) customers - kids and
families who came to the events. These are the kids who subscribe to the
Mania Magazine and read it cover to cover. These are the kids who absorb
every page of the S@H catalog. These are the core LEGO consumers (and their
parents of course).
Like others have mentioned, I find it curious that LEGO hasn't made a big
splash about "New and Improved" colors. With some of the new colors out
before Christmas, it would have been the ideal time to get the word out on
TV in the US and get a bunch of 8 year old LEGO Maniacs asking their parents
for the "cool new LEGO colors" for Christmas.
I guess my take-away from this is I feel insulted a bit by LEGO. IMHO they
have tried to pass a off color change hoping no one would even notice. Once
it was noticed, they offered a lame excuse as to why it was done. If LEGO
had issued a statement that stated "In order to keep price points where they
are, we have had to make changes to several colors in order to prevent them
from being to expensive to produce. The net result is our ability to
mainatain our high quality at current price points however, several of the
colors (grey, dark grey, brown, etc.) have changed slightly."
I could deal with something like this because it makes sense from a
"business perspective" where as what we have seen/heard from LEGO to date
does not. Change simply for the sake of change makes a company look
desparate. "Hmm, we have tried dumbing down the sets, action figures,
clothing, PC games, brand name changes, and nothing seems to work. I know!
Let's change some of the colors!" This may be a bit of an exageration, but
from the outside this is what I see. I'd like to see LEGO as a healthy,
profitable business. If some tough decisions have to be made in order for
that to happen, I am okay with it. An unprofitable TLC will be bad for
everyone, employees and consumers alike.
A quick sidebar, I am rather surprised that the US print or television media
hasn't picked up on the color change. The media are always looking for
someone or some company to gnaw on. A story like this would get tons of
exposure since there are probably few people in the US who don't at least
know what LEGO is.
A quick comment on new colors. I don't need lots of new colors, I'd much
prefer that the colors which are available have a wide variety of elements
available in them. I love the new dark red color, I think most of us do.
But to have so few elements available in this color is almost teasing us.
Orange was the same way for years. The element palette for orange is
getting pretty complete now (1x1 bricks are finally available) but colors
like medium blue, light yellow and lime green are now in a state where
orange was two or three years ago. Neat colors but with only a few parts
available in a few sets, it is difficult, expensive or impossible to amass a
sufficient quantity to build with them. I'd much prefer fewer colors but
having a comprehensive palette of elements in the colors which are
available.
If you are going to introduce new colors, please don't tease me. Complement
your new sets with buckets and tubs which contain basic bricks and plates of
the same colors so I can obtain a reasonable number of them at a reasonable
cost. IMHO the smartest thing TLC could do would be to get a tub to retail
which contains an extensive selection of new greys and browns.
With the new colors, the biggest headache for me personally is storage
however, I recognize storage is a problem 99+% of TLC's customers don't
have. After all, if you store all your bricks in one big tub, it doesn't
matter what color they are! The change to dark grey is the biggest impact
to me as I have a lot of it and I really like the color. The new dark grey
looks like a good choice for space ships but not much else. Light Grey is a
lesser issue because for some reason, I don't have a lot of grey bricks. I
have a lot of brown too but as I haven't seen the new brown yet, I can't
comment on that one.
Will I buy new sets? Sure, I already have. Will I buy as many as I have in
the past? Probably not but I can't attribute that to the color change. I
am to the point where I don't use all I have so I am trying to limit my
expenditures although I am doing a poor job of it.
Since criticism without suggestions for improvement are less than helpful,
in closing I have two suggestions for LEGO should they want to stick with
the new colors and make them succesful.
1) Start marketing the color change as a "good thing". Talk it up, sell
it, make it something your proud you did. Make sure every LEGO employees
knows all the details on what changed and why (at least the public version
of why anyway). Uninformed employees do not instill consumer confidence.
2) Augment the selection in the 2004 product line with reasonbly priced
tubs (like 4400 for $10) which contain bricks and plates in the new colors
in quantity as soon as you can. Even if it is a loss leader, if your
customer base quickly adopts your new product it will be good for LEGO in
the long run.
The other option (unlikely IMHO) is to switch back. That will also be
costly in terms of potentially unusable products and unused raw inventory.
I suspect the supply chain ramifications of a switch back aren't pretty
either.
All for now. If you made it this far, thanks for indulging me. I have
tried not to come across negative but many of my comments can and should be
viewed negatively. If I didn't care, I wouldn't have spent as much time as
I have writing this. I would simply take my disposable income elsewhere. I
don't want to do that, I really enjoy this hobby and plan to stick with it.
Mike
PS: If you are wondering why this appears post dated, I started writing it
on an airplane four days ago but didn't get back to it until tonight.
PPS: Glad to see others discussing their displeasure with the prolific use
of click hinges. They still bother me far more than the change of color.
IMHO, click hinges make LEGO look "cheap" and in most cases, they are a far
inferior choice to the finger hinges.
--
Mike Walsh - mike_walsh at mindspring.com
http://www.ncltc.cc - North Carolina LEGO Train Club
http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com - Carolina Train Builders
http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=mpw - CTB/Brick Depot
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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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