Subject:
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Letter to the LEGO President...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Thu, 4 Nov 1999 16:55:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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745 times
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Folks,
The letter for the LEGO President and the Executive Committee has gone
thru 8 rewrites. I finally think I got it right. I have to appoligize
for not getting it out sooner, but I've been real busy these last 2
months, and the letter runs to 5 pages. I won't publish this in LUGNET
and RTL until next week (because I want KKK and the Executive Committee
to receive it first), since lower level LEGO officials do read these
newsgroups. I also want to thank Ian Sinclair for his assistance.
I am sending a final rough draft to a few AFOLs (including some Train
folks), for their concurrence and final comments.
But here is a small sample of that letter (some background info before
we get to what we want). Note: I added some historical info, just to
let them know that we are informed, even about the history of the
product and the company.
....The online LEGO community numbers well over one thousand Adult
Friends of LEGO (AFOL for short). This number has doubled in the last
18 months, and will probably double again in the next year, and continue
growing fast into the future. We AFOLs really are your largest
non-business LEGO consumers. Not numerically of course, but on a per
capita basis, we spend vastly more on LEGO sets than other LEGO
consumers.
What many of these old as well as new fans of LEGO are finding out is
something that I have known for 12 years. And that is that while your
company is always polite to AFOLs, we get the feeling that since we are
not your target market (children are, and always have been), AFOLs are
pretty much ignored by your company. Everything that your company does
and says is geared towards children. Yes we know that that is over 98%
of your market. And we know that LEGO has always been devoted to
children.
We also know that in the 1960's your company did attempt (without much
success it appears) an ill fated outreach to adults in such sets as the
short lived Architectural Sets from 1963-65 -- sets 750, 751 and 752.
Also Building Idea Book #1 (LEGO item 238) has several adults building
with LEGO. The book shows architects building modern LEGO buildings,
and a young married couple building their dream house (which became the
1961 Samsonite LEGO Junior Constructor set 717 model). And then there
were those wonderful clear plastic Architectural service packs 518, 519,
520 and 521 show young adults building architectural dwellings. The
adults from that era did not have LEGO to play with as children, and so
LEGO didn't catch on with them back then. The adults of today did have
LEGO as children. And we are still building with LEGO as adults. That
is an indication that you were more successful in getting kids to play
with LEGO than you thought. Those kids grew up, but their love of LEGO
didn't stop. It is still with us. That is why we are writing you
now.......
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In addition, I have 43 people that have cosigned this letter, as well as
the number of pieces and number of sets in their collections.
Any last minute additions to this list are welcome. Just EMAIL me with
the subject "COUNT ME IN" at gistok@umich.edu and include your NAME,
(estimated) # of LEGO pieces, and (estimated) # of LEGO sets.
Gary Istok
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Letter to the LEGO President...
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| Oppps, I forgot to mention (for those not on the newsgroup for very long), that this letter is about getting something resembling bulk orders from TLG. Wow, the "COUNT ME IN" emails are pouring in. YES!! Gary Istok (...) (25 years ago, 4-Nov-99, to lugnet.general)
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