Subject:
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Re: Why do you love bley?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.color
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Date:
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Fri, 11 May 2007 15:25:27 GMT
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Viewed:
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5436 times
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In lugnet.color, Jeff Stembel wrote:
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And I think this argument is crap. I’d be incredibly surprised if the new
bley colors in display pieces made any more than a tiny fraction of a
percentage difference in parental purchasing (and probably none at all when a
child decides). Considering that more and more people are buying Lego online
these days, and many stores have no display pieces whatsoever (I can’t think
of a single one I’ve seen in a Walmart, Target, etc. recently), I can’t think
of any management that would consider this reason worthwhile. It is more
likely, IMO, that the old shades were a bit more expensive to produce or the
new shades are cheaper to produce; the studies done with children was
probably just to see whether or not they liked the colors less than the old.
If they had liked them less than the old, they probably wouldn’t have changed
it.
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Not every marketing decision works out as well as intended. In the initial
announcement, TLC said that they had done marketing groups in the interest of
supposedly bringing four colors more in line with the rest of the LEGO color
palette, and that the individuals polled unanimously agreed that the three
revised grey colors and the revised brown color “looked better” than the old
versions. Got that?
Now, everyone in known AFOLdom nearly unanimously agreed that this idea was crap
because everyone could tell firstly that the colors (most specifically
dark-bley) don’t match the rest of the color palette as well as the old ones.
Well, except Tim. But he’s admitted to being color-blind, so take his opinion
with a shaker of salt. Got that?
Right around the time that the color change happened, these display boxes
started showing up en masse in stores (well, apparently not for the
underpriveleged souls living outside of the US, but what can you do), where
before they had never been anything more than an occassional thing that showed
up for a few months and then went away (these appear to be semi-permanent, with
just the contents being rotated out). And the display boxes are being used in
stores that almost exclusively use cool-white flourescent lighting, which is the
only light source I’ve come across yet that actually makes the old greys look
bad. It would not be out of the question that TLC would be concerned about how
well an expensive in-store promotional display program would appeal, visually,
to the potential customers. Got that?
Now, combining that admittedly small amount of evidence, it is my belief that
the intended purpose behind the color change was to enhance the rather antique
look of the affected colors (most notably light-grey and dark-grey) for display
purposes. It is also my belief that, aside from alienating a fair chunk of
known AFOLdom, and giving a few military builders (and certain colorblind
individuals) a few colors that they find more significantly appealling, it
hasn’t had any major impact on sales. Given how short of a time period in which
most kids still play with toys these days, a substantial percentage of their
customer base from when the color change first hit has already moved on to other
interests, and has been replaced in turn by a new group that has little to no
experience with the pre-2004 colors. And judging by how many new Bricklink
sellers have no clue as to the color change until one of their customers informs
them, I’m guessing that only a tiny fraction of the remaining crossover youth
crowd has noticed. So, again, intent does not always equal outcome. But there
had to be an underlying reason behind the color change before it ever hit the
point of marketing focus groups, and the only reason we’ve ever been told was to
bring them more in line with the existing colors, which doesn’t fly. If it was
true, the fact that they red-shifted brown and blue-shifted the greys would mean
that the rest of the color palette should be dominated by purples, and currently
the only opaque purple-ish shades that appear to be in regular use (I can only
think of dark-purple from the HP Knight Bus and that really odd shade of blue
from KK2) were first used around or after 2004.
So again, in case I’m still not being clear enough. I believe the INTENT was
to make them more visually appealling in the in-store display boxes, under
cool-white flourescent lighting. I believe the focus groups were conducted
under cool-white flourescent lighting. And I believe it has not significantly
impacted their bottom line for either the positive or the negative. It’s just
pissed off a number of their most loyal customers and gone largely unnoticed by
the rest of the world.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Why do you love bley?
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| (...) That's the factor that makes the rest of it make sense. Obviously, the focus groups happened in office buildings, under cool-white fluorescent tubes. There's no way they did it outdoors, or under banks of incandescents, or LED's or anything (...) (18 years ago, 12-May-07, to lugnet.color, FTX)
| | | Re: Why do you love bley?
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| (...) This is, again, crap. You're making a gross generalization about an incredibly diverse group of people. A large number of people I've personally talked to think the bleys DO work better with Lego's color scheme; their issue with the color (...) (18 years ago, 13-May-07, to lugnet.color, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Why do you love bley?
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| (...) And I think this argument is crap. I'd be incredibly surprised if the new bley colors in display pieces made any more than a tiny fraction of a percentage difference in parental purchasing (and probably none at all when a child decides). (...) (18 years ago, 11-May-07, to lugnet.color, FTX)
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