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Here is a rough transcription from Brad's talk at LegoWorld 2003 on Saturday
evening. Sorry it took me a couple of days to get net access (we're dialed in
from the ldraw.org booth on the show floor at last... long story, the fast
connection did not materialise)...
An editorial comment: Some of the questions were the same ones asked 2 weeks ago
at NWBrickCon (and in some cases, 2 months ago at BrickFest 2003), and they got
the same answers they did before. That's just an artifact of the fact that it's
impossible for everyone to keep up with everything in our hobby these days.
A procedural comment: The content will be on the deBouwsteen website as soon as
is practical, perhaps translated into Dutch, please be patient.
As always, any errors or misrepresentations of what was said are unintentional,
and I accept responsibility for them, with my apologies. Please ask for
clarification and someone will clarify.
Brad’s talk at LEGOWORLD
18 October 2003
Paul Woelters introduced Brad Justus.
Brad’s introductory remarks:
Thanks for everything, its (the show) even better than last year. Good stuff
going on. Thanks especially for all the work that is done to make LW happen. It
is after all the biggest event of its type in the world.
LEGO is not about what we put into the box, it’s about what you get OUT of the
box, you’re a real inspiration to parents and kids that it doesn’t have to be
done by master builders, anyone can build terrific stuff out of LEGO if you want
to. Thanks very much for making that happen.
The company does recognize this. I went back with a bunch of pictures to the
global management team to show them.. look at what the fans can do with what we
make, our consumers creativity matters more than anything else. Not selling
Hogwarts as a set but as a means to creating more. We have now formaliszed a
group to work with community clubs and groups, Jake McKee and Kate Such are both
on that team, the community development organizations (Tormud Laskuson is
running that group (sp?)… we are focusing on NA and EU but we want to get to
other parts of the world as well.
We want to fix any problems you have had with communicating with LEGO. If you
need to talk and you’re looking for help or advice or whatever, talk to Jake or
Kate and we will get you in contact with the right people and make things
happen.
The best thing we can do is not to do everything by ourself but to go out to the
community, and enable the community… the beauty of lego is revealed in what YOU
do with the brand and we are out to do as much as we can to encourage people to
have their own events and show off their creativity. It’s a better expression of
what the brand is about than what we can do and it’s a huge thing for the kids.
We just did 20 cities in the US, at every stop there are 5 tents, one of which
is the community or enthusiasts groups, 4 tents are from the company. The
community tent has been the most popular poart of the event. Kids are
intimidated by miniland or master buiulder creations, “a professional did that”…
but the builders of the community are what they will grow up to be. The kid
saying “dad, I can make that” is what LEGO is all about. The message of the
brand is to inspire kids get out there and build.
Manfred Moolhuysen: Are we getting a LEGO btrand store in the NL.
A: focused on getting all the shops that are opening up and urnnig. Tey are
primariuly in the US. Thereare going to be more EU shjps., U doi[t know exactly
where they are going to be. I don’t decide, it’s a matter of the real estate
costs.
Nik Pieniazek: Are you from Canada?
A: no, I live in NYC… I say about and not aboooot.
Q: Why is the Mars Expedition scale so small? The launcher model is very small,
the biggest one (rover) is oversized
A: the models were not meant to go together… 3 smaller sets mark 3 important
moments in space exploration, the ISS, Apollo and the mars mission… the other
sets are done to a different scale. There is a image of the LEGO minifig on the
DVD that’s attached to the landers, and that DVD is attached WIT LEGO BRICKS!...
there are bookelst in each set that educate the kids on the science. We did I
thtat way because we could., they are not meant to be in scale with other lego
sets.
Paul Woelters Q: Any re-release of 12V as 9V train sets?
A: We are looking at it, no firm decisions yet.
Q: Can you reduce the price of older sets?.. when you reintroducing older sets
(LEGENDS )the prices are too high compared to original
A: Legends came out at the original retail price or close to it, so they are
CHEAPER than they were before after inflation.
Q: Any truth to half length 9V tracks? Why was it printed on the box of 4512?
A: That was a mistake. I don’t know why it was printed that way, it was done at
art creation time, sorry about that... At some point maybe we will get the
wishes that Jake and I(Brad) put into the design team for track geometry
changes…. But we cannot say when or if that will ever happen.
Q: Ben Beneke: More colors for axles and motor covers? Can we have red and blue?
And can we have bigger train wheels?
A: We are aware of these. Wheels are unlikely, other colors are possible but
whatever the mix is, is what it is. We have a limited range of products we can
bring out as exclusives. We know that train enthusiasts want certain things but
we cannot do it all
Q: there have been new parts available from S@H, would like thank you for doing
assortments instead of single part SKUs… the assortments have been well thought
out and having lots of accessory parts in one SKU is a good thing. Of course we
want 100 part single parts bags too…
A: yes, everyone wants everything (laughter). We have a SKU crunch… 3 years ago
there was maybe 500. we are slowly bringing that down, we are under 400 now.
Fewer products but more attention to what we are making. I think (and hope you
think too) that they are fewer but BETTER products. Discovery, make and create
and other great sets. The make and create in particular are the results of fans
like you saying you want to express your creativity better. The childhood sets
weren’t even delivered with directions in some cases, they just had idea
pictures. The M&C sets have inspiration books. There was a lot of care in those
sets. We have put a LOT of thought into them…
Q: we have not found a new supplier for mono?
A: no we have not.
Q: How do we tell if a train set has the new good wheels or the old bad wheels?
A: Jake… I don’t have a definitive answer on how to tell on the box. But call CA
and get them swapped out.
Q: they have said they will only exchange 40 wheelsets total
A: are they ALL bad?... (Q:… yes they are all bad…) but we have not found it to
be a consistent error. We can’t pin it down to the batch. We can’t say every set
has a problem. If you have reached the 40 wheel limit, send Jake a note and
will try to address/help you get them replaced… and we will announce if we have
a definite answer.
Q: Eric Brok : A point of concern about the product in general: The new hinge
system (click hinges) was Ok for certain kinds of hinges but now you see it in
every kind of hinging parts… even in parts that are not appropriate. Does the
company /designers know that we do not like these, can we ask that they use the
old designs when they are better….
A: We will pass that on. Jake: Don't just tell us... can you also use the
website email forms to feed that sort of thing in… they really do document those
and pull the records together and pass them on. If you drop all those emails in,
they will see a lot of feedback that says that and it will help. They DO get
digested, we're not just saying that, and we DO pass them along to marketing and
mfg and design. Also CA info gets circulated upwards….. all the way to senior
management
Q: any plan to level prices for different eu countries. In Italy we consistenly
pay higher proices than other countries.
A: the shop at home pricing levels are set to operate at roughly the levels at
the retail products are priced at. We don’t want to sell way less than retail or
way more, and that needs to be true even for S@H exclusives, when viewed
proprotionally, a 500 element shop at home exclusive set should be similarly
priced as a 500 element set at retail. On the whole we think our exclusives are
priced fairly or better for what you get element count wise and model quality
wise.
Q: For some prices EU prices are nearly the same and for others (Star wars for
example) there are price differences up to 40%. That’s not a tax difference
A: I am not in that part of the organization. pricing is done by retail and
it’s market specific and it is a factor of what the market might bear.
Q:what is the AFOL propourtion of sales? Has it increased?
A: hard to say exactly but it seems to be considerably less than 5%... Overall
sales have gone up.. there are a lot of items that are very popular among kids
Nik Pieniazek Q: are you looking for a supplier for monorail tracks?
A: no we are not looking
Q: There are problems with the new wright fliyer., there are wing tension
issues. Kate knows about them... it is very fragile
A: it’s a fragile prototype too, so a fragile model… Kate: the comments have
been passed along. Right now that’s the production model we have. There have not
been enough complaints or returns to justify a recall of the product.
Q: Ben Beneke: Quality… dark blue and dark red colors seem shiny and transparent
which is not normal coloration… the new colors look cheap to some of us… why is
it?
A: No specific answer. We do change color formulations and plastic suppliers.
Also (Jake) dark blue just looks different… it’s a more vivid color (lime green
is bright) in some cases and a duller color (dark red is dull) in some cases.
Q: Why did you forget south America, you closed the Brazil factory and closed
the LEGO operation…
A: Brazil is a strange market. Importing anything is very very highly taxed. If
it wasn’t for that it was not financially justified to have a factory there. We
have not forgotten about it, can we serve SA with SAH? Not sure. We have to pick
and choose distribution focus, unfortunately.
Q: Is there a chance of classic space coming back?
A: nothing is dead, things come back….
Q: new shops from LEGO that sell pick a brick… we have noticed something from
one year on now, the shops try to order the same colors again but every time the
replacement parts are different than what was ordered. Will that be a problem in
future?
A: the intention is that the assortment will change, all the time. You are not
going to see the same assortment over and over… go back to it in a few months
and you will see some different things. We make thousands of elements… we can’t
sell all the elements all the time so we have to rotate them. It may frustrate
AFOLs but the mundanes like the variety and like that it changes. It gives you a
reason to come back every month.
Q: will there be an online inventory of what is available at stores? Some people
travel very long distances and it would be nice to know in advance
A: there is no central repository of store inventory now, so that’s not easy
plus they want you to come back again.
Q: plans to have a discount for fan memberships (club, LUGNET, whatever org)?
A: no firm plans but that is an idea. In Orlando one of the display cabinets
“belongs” to a local community group (GFLTC) whioch once a month puts a
different model on display in that cabinet. Maybe we can somehow help fan clubs
, needs to be talked about. We would like to see that happen in some future.
Q: will there be a LW 2004?
A: I don’t know but I would assume so… I was told that the entire weekend has
been sold out so I HOPE it would happen. But you all have to want to come back
and do it. It is very tough, very draining it takes a lot to put the show back
together, and we recognise that it's a lot of work (and we appreciate it!)
Q: PickABrick… sometimes you have only right doors or only left wings… not
paired.
A: I will pass that on… I did not know that. I don’t go into stores for all my
LEGO, I do have my own sources, you know...
Q: Where do you get your LEGO?
A: it’s a secret (laughter)
Q: why must it (PAB pricing) be different at different locations? What is the
basic price of the brick? Is there a way to get different pricing perhaps by
large quantities?
A: Maybe it's related to the cup or the size of the cup? LEGOLAND is not brand
retail… they sell by weight but shops by volume. I cannot speak to all the
details of why things are the way they are on that.
Q: ISD? How is it doing? Are we getting more sets in that size?
A: I am not telling if there are more coming. What would justify going that big?
We cannot do that every year. The ISD sold BETTER than we expected, it sold
amazingly well. A lot of people said we could not sell a 300 dollar lego set…
the instructions alone were very time consuming… now people are bored by 1400
piece sets… we sold out of the first ISD production run before we shipped it so
we did another run
Q: Lar: Given that LEGOWORLD just snatched the record back (under a new, unified
rule set that is a bit more difficult to get good times under which must be used
for all future ISD record attempts) and given that will likely generate some
trash talking from the US on reclaiming the record, did you stash enough ISDs to
allow record attempts for quite a while?
A: Yes. Yes we did. That is the weirdest question I've ever gotten. (laugher)
Q: is there any future for the Mindstorms line?
A: yes.
Q: Can we get an adapter feed of Mindstorms? We were never officially able to
buy version 1.0… we feel limited by having to use batteries only
A: I will pass that along
Q: Are there any plans to completeth eparts inventory of that program (LEGO
Digital Designer) with all parts available? We have more parts in ldraw.org than
creator ever did or when digitial designer did. Will all bricks be available?
A: It (the 1.0 version) is officially available and 1.1 is coming within a few
weeks. It does not add to the element set but improves the stability and
installation. We will improve the element set but will it be all of them ever? I
don’t know... probably not. certain technic elements and things that bend are
hard to do. Part of how we did digital designer (which is aimed at kids, it has
a broad audience, 120k downloads in 8 weeks) was not to be standalone ,but to be
part of a virtual build then buy the thing that you build that I talked about in
the past. Digital designer is a critical step in making that happen, it's the
design tool for that. All the parts are official, the zero points are right,
it’s time consuming to get the elements right. It’s the same element library as
what is in the designer sets…. You can experiment virtually.
Q: DD for Mac?
A: no
Q: Lar: Ldraw/DD interop?
A: we have an SDK for the spec… you can save Ldraw creations in a format that
the digital designer can read. It’s not an unknown question.
Q: where do you want to stand with trains in the future?
A: it’s a great area to work in. Retail liked what direct did, so world city
happened so they could get in on trains. The retail business almost completely
drives product development. I WOULD like to see some track geometry changes. I
am not sure that we need to come out with new trains in Direct for a while...
Make your own train. Make your own pirate ship. Making new track is harder than
new sets. If I had to pick I whould rather see us do track geometry than new
sets, but retail drives product development.
Q: Ben: but we need access to the older parts in order to do older trains like
7740…. We need those to build them.
A: Yes we know. Substitute, you have the skills. We are going to keep developing
the train line, don't worry. We cannot make particular promises, though. Remote
control, dcc, those are not the directions we are going. DCC is just not a large
segment of the market. Even direct exculsivies…. Dcc is too small of a market.
At least today we cannot maek a strong business case for it.
Q: Plates, faulty parts? Where did INTERTOYs get those (InterToys, a NL toy
chain, had a large sale stand at LW and was selling a lot of discoutned stuff
including loose assorted parts... from large bins... root through for wahat you
wanted and pay by the bag... some of the orange plates in the assortment were
discovered to be warped and off color)...
A: we don’t know but we are on the case. We need to find out where they came
from and we will take it from there. You can call consumer service too.
Q: You just told us that DCC and other remotes, that the segment is very small.
Can you make it easier for us to change them…. Put screws on the motor or on the
switch so we can more easily change things around.
A: it’s outsourced, we cannot change the motor design.
Final remarks: Last year I did promise the catalog in dutch and open invoicing….
I knew I could not come back if I didn't deliver that. Well... we got that done!
Sorry, nothing to show in the way of new models… the show is too late in the
year and we already did our surprises! But you have seen we've done some great
stuff this year...
talk ended.
++Lar
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Message has 6 Replies:
 | | Re: Brad's talk
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| (...) I wonder why that is (the SKU crunch). (...) Some of the dark blue parts that I have (from R2D2) are all over the map consistancy wise. There is an issue here. (...) Bummer. They really don't get it do they. Mac is the premier OS on a PC. Lego (...) (21 years ago, 20-Oct-03, to lugnet.events.legoworld)
| | | Re: Brad's talk
|
| (...) Thanks again Larry! No need to apologize for taking a couple days. Appreciate you taking the time at all. -Paul D. (21 years ago, 20-Oct-03, to lugnet.events.legoworld)
| | | Re: Brad's talk
|
| (...) Can someone please post these new rules to the public? Is there any central place for info on each ISD timed build to date? Thanks! -Tim (21 years ago, 21-Oct-03, to lugnet.events.legoworld)
| | | Re: Brad's talk
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| (...) Thanks! (...) Hm, I was not aware of this at all. Still want one though. (...) There have recently appeared cardboard boxes at Swedish toystores that are filled with misc. bricks. You can dig through the box and fill 1 litre zip-lock bags and (...) (21 years ago, 21-Oct-03, to lugnet.events.legoworld)
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