Subject:
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Re: Who Lied? (was: Halving the colours in the palette - Lego Life Sept 2004)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.color
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Date:
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Fri, 10 Dec 2004 16:14:44 GMT
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(details)
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In lugnet.color, Marc Nelson, Jr. wrote:
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I don’t have any insider information about TLC (perhaps you do?), so I can’t
say with any certainty whether these groups are composed of different people
or not. But both projects (assuming they are seperate projects) are doing the
same thing: cutting colors, adding colors, and changing colors.
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Wait-- adding and changing colors? Where did you see that? That was part of the
2004 color change, sure, but where does it show up in this current initiative?
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Knowing the glacial slowness with which TLC makes changes, isn’t it more
likely that we are looking at a single four-year initiative, rather than one
four-year initiative which wrapped up in 2004 and another completely separate
initiative which began in 2004 - both up which have the same results? It
doesn’t strike you as odd that we were told TLC was changing colors to
improve the product, but now we are reading an internal TLC publication that
says they are changing colors to save money?
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No. Back in 2000 TLC thought it was on the path to victory. In 2004 they’re
trying to be on the path to survival. Remember all those campaigns to become the
number 1 toy brand in households with children? At the time, Lego was exploding
into other territories like ZNAP and Galidor and video games. The prospect of
Harry Potter and Star Wars, and licensing in general was sparkling with promise.
Mindstorms was still new. Disney had just signed a deal with Lego. Bionicle was
about to become the new hottest thing.
What’s happened since? Lots of problems. Lots of cutbacks. ZNAP failed. Galidor
flopped. Harry Potter 2 left vast quantities of unbought Lego in stores. Episode
II did poorly. Licensing wasn’t working. WalMart (who doesn’t get along with TLC
as well) took the lead well over Toys R Us in toys. Theme parks (I assume, given
their current status) weren’t thriving as hoped. MegaBloks continued doing well.
They acquired the Disney license. They beat Lego to the punch with their Nano
and skateboardish lines.
The focus when the color change started was probably NOT to cut costs, but to
make the product cool. But now, with Kjeld stepping down, theme parks being sold
off, planning movement to China, removal of all outside licensing, shutdown of
US production, lots of layoffs, and cutting half the palette, the aim is to save
money. Not to become the world’s leader in toys.
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Don’t get me wrong - I think cost-cutting was the only good reason for the
color change (and I said as much
last November). I just would rather have had the real story back then, not
some baloney about “muddy palettes”. And before anyone rushes to Jake’s
defense, let me state my belief that Jake gets fed just as much bull as we do
by the Billund braintrust.
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I agree that cost-cutting would have been a good reason. So too would have been
making the plastics more recyclable or less toxic. I would have a bit more faith
in the company as a whole if that were the case. But I don’t think it is.
If anything, I’ll bet that the changed colors COST them money instead of SAVING
them money. After all, they had to re-stock all new ABS pellets, had to
(probably) run lots of test batches to get just the right color (more ABS and
time used), and they weren’t going to use the remainder of their OLD colors, so
any leftover ABS was left to go to waste.
The focus today is saving money. The focus then was getting a better product. I
don’t think anyone lied. I just think they made some poor decisions. Let’s hope
this one helps them get on the right path.
DaveE
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