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 LEGO Company / LEGO Direct / 3946
3945  |  3947
Subject: 
Re: LEGO direct query of the week
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general, lugnet.lego.direct
Date: 
Wed, 2 Jan 2002 22:28:33 GMT
Viewed: 
50 times
  
In lugnet.loc.au, Lawrence Wilkes writes:

"Benjamin Whytcross" <b_whytcross@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:GpB4s5.GI0@lugnet.com...
It seems that LD have no interest in catering for the world market, and
still insist that the USA is the only country they care about, as shown by
their description of 3425:

"Play for the championship!

Now you can lead your team to victory in the ultimate soccer match! This
special set features a full 22 players, four balls, and more. Make the
players move forward and backward, and the goalkeeper leap high to block
that kick. Use the special logo and number stickers to turn your squad into
the US National World Cup Team"

Now, when I found this, I was looking for items for AUSTRALIA, not the
UNITED STATES. Readng it that way, one can assume this set comes with
figures for an Australian team[1] ("Now you can lead our team to
victory...")...yet they expect you to then turn this into the "US National
World Cup Team". Maybe it's just me, but this doesn't seem to make sence, as
I don't believe the US team plays in green and gold, and I don't
particularly want a US team in my collection anyway.

[1] Actually, the way this is advertised[2], I would expect that any country
that has access to this set would get their own team, along with stickers to
make it into the US team.

[2] Which in Australia, could end up with the Lego Direct having to pay up a
fair amount in fines over "misleading and deceptive advertising" if they
don't include an Australian team [I could be mistaken...after all, I am not
a lawyer. However, I believe other companies have had trouble with
less...even small print isn't justifiable as an excuse. (Target and KMART
with their 12.5% off everything sales, etc.]

Well the set is very clearly named 'US National Team...', so I don't think there is any ambiguity about this.

However, I agree that is someone disappointing that the only team on offer in ANY country is the USA.
Here in the UK the USA is not my team. So why is it worded that way?
And it does make me laugh seeing as they are the least enthusiastic about the game. Whilst the US is clearly the biggest
single market, it is not the biggest market for soccer-based sets I wouldn't have thought.

What about a  Germany 1 England 5 commemorative set? :-)

Or a "Portugal 3 - England 2"?  ;-)

You are totally right about enthousiasm, but for the LEGO company that isn't
an issue - otherwise we'd have a brazilian team and an argentinian team as well.
The real bugger for me isn't that stuff about the national team from the
USA, it is the difficult customization of the players. The ones that came
with the stickers for the Portuguese team were "halfway": they had the
correct red sweater, but the wrong white trousers (trunks?), or the other
way around (scheme is red-green or all white, for those who don't know it).
Other countries have lesser difficulties (say Germany or Italy), and I do
understand the need to make standard sets for mass production - hence, the 4
basic schemes. But what about offering the possibility to order "player
packs" from S@H? Wouldn't it be nice to have all those teams to re-live the
world cup this year?
Just a thought,

Pedro (who wishes he had tickets for Korea in late Spring)



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