Subject:
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Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Mon, 10 May 2004 15:38:04 GMT
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In lugnet.dear-lego, Anthony Sava wrote:
> But let's look at the bigger picture here. Yes, LEGO has been a successful
> company for many many years. Yes, LEGO has taken mighty big risks in it's day.
> Plastic instead of wood? Heresy! Minfigs with arms? Blasphemy! New colors
> besides the basic 6? Profanity! But what about the other risks LEGO has taken
> in the last ten years?
>
> Yes, Bionicle was huge risk. Yes, Bionicle has made LEGO an awful lot of money.
>
> But what about the imfamous Galidor. That was a risk. LEGO knew what they were
> doing then, right? Galidor tested with with all the focus groups, right? That
> wasn't a really great success.
They were "following the trends in the children's toy market". Look at Pokemon,
Power Rangers, and the like. Enormous success stories with incredible revenue
from toys over the years. The stinking Pokemon toy market won't die! My kids
bought the new Pokemon Colluseum game for Game Cube the first day they could
(paid full price). This is the market Lego thinks they want to be in. They
want to find a fad that takes off.
Bionicle did that, the others didn't.
> Changing Duplo for to Explore... that was a risk. LEGO knew what they were
> doing then, too, right? Explore sounds so much better than Duplo, it sounds so
> much more educational. Did it test well with the focus groups too? LEGO turned
> around on its decision there, it's back to Duploe. That wasn't really a great
> success.
Agreed, this was stupid. Adults buy Duplo, not kids. I'll bet that most kids
that play with Duplo can't even go to the bathroom without adult help. Changing
the name of the brand that adults know and love was really stupid.
> Scala, Belville and the other LEGO for girl buiding sets (Clickits aside)? LEGO
> knew what they were doing, didn't they? Girls love LEGO! They love pinks and
> purples and barbie doll sized figs! Girls love pink and purple LEGO with barbie
> doll sized figs, right? Bet it tested well with the focus groups. I've never
> seen Scala or Belville on store shelves, and it's always going on sale on
> shop.lego.com, but LEGO knows what it's doing, right? I don't know if I'd call
> it a success.
Lego has never known how to sell to girls. They want a piece of the maket that
Barbie plays in. The problem is that even the makers of Barbie are loosing hold
of this market. Newer, cooler, toys like Bratz are seriously eating into the
Barbie market. Barbie still sells well, but only to adults. The girls I know
would rather buy newer, cooler toys.
Lots of ideas that didn't take off snipped...
> Mindstorms! Ok, now we're getting somehwere. Mindstorms is a great product. I
> bet it tested fantastically. I don't own Mindstorms, but I've seen that they're
> great. But there's the problem: Price prohibitive. Now Minstorms is almost
> entirely limited to schoolastic endevours, and out of the hands of the general
> public. A fantastic success for schools, a mild success overall.
Mindstorms is doing well, but you can't directly market it to kids. The price
point is so high, you have to market it to adults, which includes teachers and
schools.
> Video games! Bring LEGO home to your Playstation, build in virtual reality! I
> bet that tested very well. LEGO sure knew what it was doing with that, right?
> Recent press releases have stated LEGO is dropping all it's electronic products,
> so I guess this wasn't a success.
Again, an example of Lego trying to push itself into a new market and extend its
"brand" image. Not exactly a success. Kids that love to play with Lego seem to
like real bricks. That's not to say they don't like video games too, but why
play with virtual Legos? That's an adult concept.
> Star Wars! Harry Potter! Big success stories, right? Tested well with
> the focus groups. LEGO must have hit it square on the head. Recent press
> releases have stated that LEGO is dropping or limiting their licensed
> products. I guess fees are getting too much? Perhaps set design with so
> many pieces for the lower cost is cutting into profits? I don't know. I do
> know that there are original Harry Potter sets still on sale at my Wal Mart
> and my TRU, and a few of the other Star Wars sets from seasons passed as
> well. A used-to-be-a success?
I have to disagree with you here. I would have [killed] for Star Wars Lego back
in 1977! My friends and I (about six to eight years old) played Star Wars with
our Legos all the time, but the models we made were really lame by today's
standards. Lego missed the boat on this back in 1977. Look how successful Star
Wars toys were in the late 70's and the 80's. Without a doubt, they set the bar
in terms of non-construction toys for boys.
> Bionicle, LEGO's golden goose... right? Tested well with focus groups, I'm
> sure. LEGO KNOWS what it's doing, right? I'm not so sure. All of my local
> stores are DESPERATELY trying to get rid of older bionicle sets. They're just
> not selling. MY TRU is running a sale: Buy a new bionicle get any old bionicle
> off the shelf for free. I guess the market is saturated with ball and socket
> technic bits, I'm no expert. I just call em as I see em. A success, yes. But
> is it STILL a success? Many kids, but more parents to be sure, I've overheard
> in stores have said that they're fed up with Bionicle. Definately, though, a
> success.
My son loves Bionicle sets, but he still has the Bionicle movie sitting in the
shrink wrap. He got it for his birthday in February. The tells me that he
wants to play with his Lego, not watch it on TV or play a Lego video game on the
computer. Even his Bionicle Gameboy Advance game doesn't get played much. What
does? Pokemon! That kid has every Pokemon game he can get his hands on.
> Yes, Bionicle was attacked by AFOLs. Unpure! Unclean! Evil! Yes, we called
> that one wrong. But I think it's fair to say that overall, we AFOLs know what
> we're talking about. I'd wager we have a higher success rate for calling good
> and bad ideas that LEGO has had in the last ten years. Can you really say,
> LEGO, that you KNOW what you're doing because ONE of your experiements happened
> to be a big success?
>
> There's the thing. LEGO keeps taking these risks, trying to set new trends, be
> better, different, cutting edge. I'm sorry to tell you LEGO, ten, twenty years
> ago, your sets were better. You set the bar. You constantly set the bar. All
> other sets are compared to the bar. All clone bricks are compared to the bar.
> The height of the bar is why LEGO is synonymous with 'construction toys'.
>
> The bar does NOT go down!
Again, I have to disagree. 20 years ago Lego wouldn't do Star Wars sets, or
other liscenced sets, but the demand was there. I would have also killed for a
Space: 1999 Eagle done in Lego. Again, I had to make my own, but they were
pretty lame.
> For some people, the color issue is LEGO missing the bar. LEGO set the bar very
> high after having 30 years of never changing an existing color. 30 years is a
> long time. Changing a core color, even if it wasn't a core color 30 years ago,
> is vaulting way under the bar for these people. LEGO bricks from 30 years ago
> match perfectly with the color of bricks from a year ago, I know it, I own 30
> year old bricks, I own Classic Space and Classic Town sets.
So do I, but 30 years ago, that was just about all you could buy! Take a look
at the catalogs.
Take a look at Classic Space. It was a huge, monstorous success! It didn't
look much like anything on TV or in the movies at the time, yet it sold like
crazy and caused lots of spin-off lines (Futuron, Space Police, Blacktron, Space
Police II, Blacktron II, Unitron, and etc). Some of the spin-offs were less
successful, but Space, in some form or another, has always been a key to Lego's
success.
> Current LEGO set design, aside from Licensed sets, is very spotty and
> questionable in my opinion. LEGO set the bar ten, twenty years ago. LEGO can't
> seem to reach the bar without a push from an outside source (Star Wars, Harry
> Potter). The 80's and early 90's in Castle, Space, Town, and most all other
> themes are, arguably, the best sets LEGO has produced in 20 years.
In your opinion, as an adult. Lego has to market to today's kids. I'm 35 and I
realize that the things my kids think is cool, I find a bit weird. Pokemon is
an example. Power Rangers is an even better example. I hate both of them, but
the kids really love them.
> How can you raise the bar when you can't reach the bar? This isn't limbo I'm
> talking about, this is not a question of 'How low can you go?'
The bar has to be set so that kids can jump over the bar. If the bar gets
raised too high, only AFOL's will buy Lego. Look at the model train market.
How many kids buy model trains? Few to none. How many adults buy model trains?
Lots more than kids. But the overall market for model trains likely isn't as
large as the market for Lego. Why? Because as adults, hobbies are many and
varied.
Adult hobbies go to extremes in many ways which limits their appeal to very
small markets. If Lego wants to maintain its marketshare, they have to market
to kids. They have to do things that adults think is "stupid". This means that
many times, they'll "blow it". Why? Lego is run by adults and adults have a
very hard time figuring out what kids think is cool. They have an even harder
time [predicting] what kids will think is cool. That's the nature of the toy
business.
> Therein lies the problem, I think. Some people's problem with the color change
> lies in LEGO letting them down... again. And again. (and again).
>
> And I could be wrong. I could be wrong about everything I've said. I have
> merely posted to maybe bring up a thought. And that is that even though your
> focus groups tested your products well, and even though you 'KNOW' what you're
> doing, the past does not lie. AFOLs could hold the key to what the public would
> purchase over your competitors.
Here I think you're wrong. When your market is kids, adults aren't much help.
Because of this, your arguments fall flat.
If Lego wanted to shrink its market and become like model trains they could, but
what management of any company wants to shrink their sales and fire countless
people that are no longer needed? What executives want sales to fall off so
their own pay can be cut to match the size of the smaller company?
We're dealing with human nature here. Lego wants to grow. Unfortunately their
market is kids and its [hard] to predict what kids want, especially if
management is old enough that their kids are having kids.
Jeff
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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| (...) I agree with most of the replys. As a 42 year old AFOL, I see what some of the kids are looking at. They see these hugh sets made by other companies like Mega___--, it hurts to even type the name. Lego needs to make more sets to compete with (...) (21 years ago, 10-May-04, to lugnet.dear-lego)
| | | Re: The Bar Does Not Go Down
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| I'm a citizen of Legoland travellin' Incommunicado "Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@rmspam...mspam.com> wrote in message news:HxI8rG.FA9@lugnet.com... <snip> (...) revenue (...) kids (...) could (...) They (...) Good points but you have to appreciate (...) (21 years ago, 11-May-04, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | The Bar Does Not Go Down
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| I just know I'm going to get flamed for this. I'm putting on my flame suit early. What follows are my opinions. Take them as you wish. I don't plan on doing much with this thread, so don't expect too many replies from me. It seems to me, for some (...) (21 years ago, 10-May-04, to lugnet.dear-lego) !!
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