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In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
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> * Would you buy LEGO toys for children 0-11? Y/N
Yes. I have three nieces and I still buy lego for them as presents. Additionaly
my wife is expecting now and we will be buying for our own doughter in a few
months if we still could find some meaningfull stuff. (definetely not clickit
thingies!..).
> * Why / Why not?
Because I still believe in Lego. But to say the truth, it is becoming more and
more difficult to find the real thing between all the garbage. The universal
sets (both Duplo and Lego) that are most appropriate to introduce smaller kids
to creative world of Lego, is quite sparse nowadays (but yes, you are doing good
by introducing these creator and designer series).
> * What feature(s) would you add if you were the marketing director of LEGO?
I won't. The beauty lies inside the basic idea of Lego. It does not require any
additional features, as long as you don't give up The Basic Idea (i.e. Lego is a
construction toy). Still Remember the old marketing slogan of yours?
"A new toy everyday".
> * How would you change existing LEGO products if you wanted to sell them for
> more money?
You can't sell them for more money. Prices are quite high even now (rediculous,
one might say, especially in my country. 70 USD for Jango Fett technic set
anyone?..)
All you can do is reducing your costs (smaller packages, less packaging material
- children can do quite well without numbered and printed bags, less new molds
every new year, less complex printed parts, etc - I'm sure you have enough VA/VE
engineers, just listen them) or increasing sales volume (more core products
instead of not-lego-anymore contraptions)
Geting rid of distributers would be another idea. They are undermining your
business, I can see that clearly from the changes in last several years in my
country. While you had your own office in Istanbul, and allow every shop owner
to do their own importing, Lego was only 10-20% expensive when compared to the
European price levels. All the toy shops in big cities, even quite small ones,
were selling Lego (which showes me Lego was a good selling and popular product
at that time). Now there is an authorized Lego distributor (Adore) for the last
several years and prices skyrocketed as soon as they took over. 70 USD for Jango
Fett, 490 USD for Mindstorms robotics Invention set, 200 USD for 8455 Backhoe
Loader are some prices that I can remember from my visit to nearest shopping
mall last weekend. Result? Nobody except some very few shops selling Lego now.
All the others, including toys'r'us shops, filled their shelves with megablocks
and other knock offs.
> * What new products would you launch?
- More Model Team type of sets, but not trucks or racing cars only. Planes,
ships, (especially) buildings, whatever. Your recent popular planes sets or
building bonanza set for example are the best sets that I've seen for a long
time. And we don't need any new big one-purpose pieces in nth different shade of
an already existing color. Development is always good, but over development is
confusing and frustrating to say the least.
- Normal Town sets. I have more than 600 minifigs, and 1/2 of them are
policemen, firemen and racers.
- More historical themes. Vikings are looking quite good, but how about some
oriental stuff like Indians, Arabs or Ottomans (I would definately like that
one)?
- I will have a baby girl in three months and I already have two girl nieces.
Intorduce more sets that can attract girls. Sets featuring buildings and houses,
normal town sets, whatever. Just give them something to build, not just to play
with. I certainly don't want my doughter to play only with some Lego branded
Barbie knock offs. If I wanted, I would definetly buy the real one. And I asure
you, I will never ever buy a clickit thingy.
- Isn't it the time already passed for an able, powerful cad software of your
own (i.e. look around for very fine examples already available)? Don't you think
it is more valuable and more to-the-point than other software of yours like Lego
Island game that no one wants to play with?
- Licencing is not always a good idea, but if selected wisely, it hits the
available fan base hard. Star Wars Lego was a dream come true for us 30+ adults,
and almost all of the sets that I bought since you introduced them are SW Lego.
Not because I'm a die hard SW fan, but they are the almost only old-schoolish
Lego sets you produced in the recent years (to say the truth, your line is going
better and better for the last two years with all these universal sets and
stuff). Point is? continue with intelligent licencing. What about, for example,
sculpture type of sets featuring heros and figures known all around the world? I
think, say, introducing Lego sculptures of famous computer game heros makes more
sense when compared to introducing nothing but average Lego computer games.
- What about your most intelligent recent move that we call Mindstorms? When did
you introduced a new Mindstorms set lately? In 2002? Why do you let this most
promising idea die alone in the back? Isn't that creativity what Lego is all
about. Ýsn't that Mindstorms is creativity in extreme?
> * What should LEGO be doing that it isn’t now?
- Get rid of the things like clickits, etc (too many to list unfortunatelly).
They are not Lego. Focus more into your core area. You are the king of the
construction toy business, so grab it. Do not return into a general toy company
doing everything but not doing any of them good enough to be a #1 product. You
already have your #1, do not lose it.
Selçuk Göre
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Holy Mackerel! LEGO survey...
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| All, I know that some of you have attempted to fill out the survey announced yesterday on LEGOfan.org, only to be turned away with a message about the survey being complete. After some late night phone calls and early morning emails, I've been to (...) (20 years ago, 16-Apr-05, to lugnet.general, lugnet.lego) !!
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