Subject:
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Bradley has stuff to say about all this! Re: A VERY interesting article on the Lego Business
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Thu, 21 Dec 2000 04:01:49 GMT
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Viewed:
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691 times
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""It's another example of Lego executives living in the past and thinking about
what their own childhoods were like rather than what it is like to be young
now. It's a mistake they have to rectify," he says."
Why must LEGO be for people who are children now? People who were children in
the golden age of LEGO (I grew up with 1990-1995 LEGO) still love it. Don't
take away our LEGO just because we've grown up.
"Lego's optimism is not widely shared outside
its closely-knit ranks of loyal employees. Jon Salisbury, a seasoned toy
industry watcher and publisher of UK Toy News, says: "I do worry about Lego. It
doesn't perform in the toyshops as it used to in the 1970s and 1980s. It all
started to go wrong in the 1990s when it failed to change with the times and it
doesn't seem to have found the solution yet.""
Yeah, but look at the 1980s Castle and Space sets in the database. They're
better. LEGO went down because it did change, trying to keep with the times,
and the sets aren't a neat as they once were.
"Lego, he says, has become a complacent and
bloated empire. Even its much-heralded Lego Football (up to £35), its
bestseller this year, has been unfavourably compared to the doomed Subbuteo and
branded by one commentator as a "museum piece". It is certainly difficult to
see how it can successfully compete long-term with the plethora of computer
football games that have captured both youngsters' and adults' imagination –
and don't involve losing vital elements down the backs of sofas and into vacuum
bags. It is also undoubtedly hard in this hi-tech, media-driven age for a set
of pieces of plastic, however ingenious, to compete with the hugely popular
virtual pet phenomenon and the TV or movie-linked merchandise."
Unless the competition's ball is glued to the field, its just as loseable.
"This year's toy hit parade is topped by a
series of robotic dogs, such as the Teksta interactive puppy (£40) and the
Poo-chi pet(£25), Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? games and the perennial Barbie
doll in her latest guise and fashionable outfit. Parents are spending more than
ever before on Christmas presents – how many children now would be content with
1954's "Toy of the Year", the Sooty glove puppet, for instance – but they are
not spending it on Lego. Today's instant gratification child does not want to
go through the bother of constructing something with several hundred plastic
bricks, when a virtual pet comes to life with a stroke of the back. The virtual
pet craze, which started with the Tamagotchi obsession which saw some school
pupils being sent home because they spent more time in class tending to their
"animals" than focusing on their lessons, has moved up another gear. Kids
grow out of traditional toys far younger than they used to. There is currently
no stronger status symbol in the British classroom than these virtual pets;
with the more sophisticated models costing more than £100. Lego, with all its
scope for creativity, does not have the same street cred. Kids want some clever
electronic gadgetry to do the imagining for them."
Today's instant gratification child should not be encouraged! Do not buy
kids Racers!!!!!! If a child does not have to "bother" with playing, what is
the toy for? Stroking the back of a robot is not hours of enjoyment, I want to
assemble it! And shouldn't toys be for fun, not status? LEGO is entering the
robotic dog market next year, although their entry involves building
and programming. It looks like a wonderful toy.
My mom spent well over $250 on LEGO at Christmas for me. Am I not getting
enough?
"Lego became very confident in its eyrie on
top of the industry. But the language of toys is now very different. Children
are media literate and very fickle. Product concepts come and go at a far
quicker pace. Lego have a similar mentality to Nintendo. Both have strong
domestic markets and have consequently been very slow to launch new things.
"But if they don't adapt quickly Mattel and the entertainment-based products
will do it for them," says Mr Salisbury. Kjeld has, at last, realised that Lego
must forsake its ideals as an outlet for young imaginations and marry itself
more closely with show business if it is to move with the times.Lego has set
itself two missions by 2005 – to be the strongest brand amongst families with
children, beating such giants as McDonald's and Coca-Cola, and more than
doubling its turnover."
Again, why must LEGO move with the times. The times are going in the
wrong direction. Funny that LEGO did McDonalds promo sets last year, and a new
Coca Cola promo has just been released in Japan, if these are who it intends
to "beat".
"It has chosen two high-risk strategies to
achieve its aim, but ones which have already had their impact on profits. In an
extraordinary confessional statement to his staff, Kjeld put it recently: "We
in top management over-estimated sales and our optimism resulted in too many
cost-demanding initiatives...We were perhaps more driven by the wish for
quantitative growth than for qualitative and healthy growth." The first new
departure is into the crowded and fast-changing hi-tech world of robotics and
media. The fourth generation of Lego toys – after basic construction, mobility
with wheels (introduced in 1962) and then small figures for role and theme play
(in the 1970s) – has introduced so-called "intellectual" bricks to "build
behaviour into creations". These enable sophisticated youngsters to build a
plastic pop band or construct Lego cars on their PCs and then race them in an
onscreen computer game."
I am not thrilled with "fourth generation LEGO." Am I the only one left who
wants to have plastic bricks in his hands, and all over the living room? I
don't have any desire to build and race on my computer. Computers are for
communication with other people who like the play with plastic bricks.
Computers are not for building.
"Both the Mindstorms and Mybot ranges contain
make their own moving, talking toys which have been hailed by the Guinness Book
of Records as the most advanced robots ever. Their microchips can handle 1,500
commands simultaneously and their popularity with grown-ups as well has seen
them take their place on the shelves of computer stores, not just toyshops.
They are clever, impressive toys but they have also been expensive to develop
and have yet to take the toy market by storm, perhaps in part because of their
very complexity. Sales figures on these and other Lego CD-Roms proved
impossible to obtain from secretive Lego after a week of inquiries, although Ms
Lykkegaard said that the first Lego CD-Rom "Lego Island" had been a "tremendous
success"."
Yes, Mindstorms appears very impressive, educational, and creative. Definately
the right way to expand. I hope the RDS my mom ordered arrives in time for
Christmas.
"The other new area – licensing – surely accelerates the decline of the purely
creative in Lego products that has been so jealously protected. It has so far
negotiated licences with the Star Wars creator George Lucas, Disney, Harry
Potter and Bob the Builder to produce themed Lego products. Figures are
sketchy once again, but Lego says it sold 2bn Danish kroner (£163m) of Star
Wars themed sets last year, a feat which greatly contributed to its 30 per cent
rise in sales."
Star Wars is in no way a risk. It is well established after 23 years. I only
recently began liking Star Wars because I rented the movies after I got the
LEGO. Everyone wins. Star Wars LEGO is not uncreative. The sets have great
parts! Who doesn't build original stuff with them? We could blame TLC for not
being as creative by using ships from a movie, but that's not an excuse for uas
to be uncreative.
What is BOB THE BUILDER??????
"The others are only now beginning to come on
stream, with Harry Potter goodies set for next year shortly before the release
of the movie. "Finally Lego is getting into bed with Hollywood through
licensing – a practice until recently simply unthinkable," says UK Toy News's
Mr Salisbury. "But now Lego will have to play by Tinseltown's rules and work on
the basis of a short life-cycle of one or two years, previously anathema to
its whole ethos. Linking up with TV and the movies has its own risks, and
negotiating with people like Lucas can be very tough. He's known as the most
expensive licence around, despite the fact that Star Wars is not what it was.""
Most LEGO products were only out for two years anyway, no big deal. And the
eight-year Star Wars contract (with year three sets now hitting stores) proves
that this is not always the case. IMHO, Harry Potter is a fad, and LEGO should
not touch it. They might be absoultely fantastic parts sets, but it would send
TLC the wrong message to buy them. Only if there's a cheap set with an owl.
"But Kjeld is optimistic. "They fit together,
the Lucas storytelling and our creative products. The same with Disney and
Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse and friends.""
Well, I don't like Disney, but that's just a personal thing. And its for
little kids. I don't really care what they do to Duplo and Fabuland.
"The danger is that this bid for long-term
survival could impair Lego's greatest asset – its uniqueness and creativity. By
hitching its name to other great brands, it may be diminishing its own."
Seeing how Star Wars is attracting new LEGO fans, I'd say that its actually
spreading its own name. But yes, they have a point. Okay, i'm done.
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Message has 2 Replies:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | A VERY interesting article on the Lego Business
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| Compelling reading for those who love lego. (URL) to Nathaniel Cross for spotting this. Dont read it if you get all emotional about lego though, its not too positive. They do suggest there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. But even their (...) (24 years ago, 20-Dec-00, to lugnet.general)
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