Subject:
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Re: Lego Stories (was Re: Remote Control Figures? (Was Re: Bionicle Sets))
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 2 Feb 2001 20:41:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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806 times
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"Timothy D. Freshly" wrote:
>
> "Jonathan Lill" <jonathanl@myriadweb.com> wrote in message
> news:G853FG.2ID@lugnet.com...
> > In lugnet.general, Timothy D. Freshly writes:
> [snip]
>
> > I ask these questions because I know ifr I like what Lego is doing or not
> > but I wonder constantly whether it is only my perspective as an adult and • my
> > nostalgia for the toy I had as a child that is creating my opinion of the
> > company today.
> >
> > Other's thoughts on this would be appreciated.
> >
> > Jonathan
>
> This is a good point. It is difficult now as an adult not to impose our
> desire for more complexity, more complete sets, etc. onto Lego. I always
> TRY to remember that the primary market is children (although I believe that
> AFOLs constitute a larger percentage of that market than Lego attributes).
If I were an executive at LEGO I would not consider the AFOL market a
group to which to cater. AFOLs are only incidental to the core market
and marketing that LEGO has developed over DECADES. AFOLs may just be a
temporary anomaly. Yes, we seem to have gained a lot of adherants in
the last five years and that coincides with rapid growth and
accessibility of the commercial internet...but are we a stable and
long-lasting force? I might have enough reason to doubt that and I
certainly wouldn't develop a business plan based on such an uncertainty
if I were at the helm at LEGO. We could be gone in five years (it seems
more probable than TLC being gone in that span of time) or reduced to
total insignificance by a reduction in numbers. Is LEGO a hobby that is
constantly attracting new adult fans? Will it in another five years?
TLC needs to focus its marketing and development on the desires and
needs of children. If that means a thousand or two thousand people who
read an internet website will be unhappy...it's not really that
important to TLC, nor should it be.
Ask yourself, if you were running a company that produced products for
children would you even want an adult fan base springing up to use your
product? Sure, they provide some free advertising and consume some of
your product, but they also critisize the product, obsessively discuss
decisions your company is making and do not promote the image of the
typical user of your product. How would you feel towards them? What
would you do?
> I also realize that Lego is trying to capture as broad of range of customers
> as possible and probably feels as if the background stories and names are
> more appealing to today's children and more likely to grab their attention.
> I guess I'm just fearful that for many children today, a "Princess Storm"
> minifig will ALWAYS be Princess Storm and will NEVER be anything else in
> their minds. That type of self-imposed limits is not what Lego should be
> about.
I have this problem with the Star Wars sets. I like them because I can
tell they are nice constructions and use good pieces...I think I would
like them even more if they weren't based on a movie. I saw Star Wars
when I was a kid, but it never seemed like anything more than a pretty
good movie to me at the time or since. I never developed Star Wars
mania, nor have I thought about it much in my life. When I see the Star
Wars Lego sets, I recognize some of them from the movie (the x-wing and
tie fighters mostly) but I don't even remember the Slave I or that big
brown thing. So I don't know how closely the models resemble the "real"
thing. Yet, I can't consider them as original space models like the
galaxy explorer...there's this story attached, and even though I'm not
all that familiar with the story, it limits how I see these models...
--
Thomas Main
main@appstate.edu
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