Subject:
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Re: Stuff I'd like to see...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Fri, 17 Mar 2000 20:37:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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1714 times
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In lugnet.dear-lego, Richard Marchetti writes:
> TLC's ambitions are probably an exercise in overreaching. Belville will never
> be Barbie. These terrible video games will never compete with Doom or Myst.
> These timepieces will never put Swatch or Timex out of business. Playmobile
> is already too well realized to be competed with directly. So IMHO, in the
> end it will be about modular bricks or nothing.
I can't agree more. TLC's apparant ambitions are, to put it mildly, ludicrous.
According to their press release: "...our goal is for the LEGO brand to be
known as the strongest brand in the world among families with children by
2005." From their recent attempts at creating video and computer games, as well
as their attempts to get into children's clothing (not to mention their attempt
to compete with Barbie, etc?) it appears that TLC wants (ultimately) to target
EVERY children's market.
That's not to say that Lego CAN'T achieve its goal, it just means that to do so
would require far more time and money than TLC is ready to deal with (IMHO).
Mainly, the issue feasibility. If Lego wanted to tackle ONE of these markets,
THEN proceed to another, that might be understandable. After all, things like
Nintendo, Barbie, etc. take years in and of themselves to become market
leaders. And that's not to mention the number of companies that tried to corner
these markets and failed. ("They tried and failed?" "They tried and died."
[ignore my nerdy quotes]) TLC can't expect to venture into all of these markets
and come out on top, or even with a respectible market share in each. Now if
Lego wanted to ONLY go into the video game market, or ONLY into the doll
market, maybe they could make some headway. But tackling all these areas at
once is plain silly to me.
The other MAJOR problem is that all these areas are ALREADY cornered. The doll
market has Barbie. The video game industry has major players like Midway,
Nintendo, Squaresoft, etc. TLC will most likely be booted out of these markets
by the already leading companies.
But the one market that Lego is ALREADY a major player in is Construction Toys.
They're competing with K'Nex, Mega Blocks, etc., but Lego pretty much IS the
primary brand name. But this plan seems (to me) to pose a threat to that
position-- if they begin to focus and spend on these other markets, then
they're not putting as much of their effort into the Brick. And coupled with
the nasty trend of juniorization, who knows how their existing market stance
will be affected.
Anyway, suffice to say, I don't think their plan should be to try and become a
large, booming, fad company-- I'd prefer if they simply stuck to what they do
best-- the Brick. And if they want to experiment in new areas, do it slowly,
one at a time. I sincerely hope for the best, and hopefully I'm wrong, but I
fear the plan they've set for themselves simply doesn't add up.
Anyway, that's my $.02...
DaveE
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Stuff I'd like to see...
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| To Whom It May Concern (and therefore the least likely to actually read it): TLC's ambitions are probably an exercise in overreaching. Belville will never be Barbie. These terrible video games will never compete with Doom or Myst. These timepieces (...) (24 years ago, 10-Mar-00, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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