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Hi,
I think that TLC faces problems in several fronts with respect to their
sales and marketing in the future.
1)AFOLs vs Target Audience-By targetting the 12 and under group and
designing sets based on what these groups may want Lego in turn is
alienating the adults by releasing dumbed down Jr-ised sets.what is ironic
is that this same group of people are less likely to continue playing with
lego as they grow older because of these same Jr-ised sets.Most Afols were
kids during the 1970s-1990s when Lego was arguably producing some of their
best sets and they are still playing with their Lego now.To summarize I
think Lego is shortening the "shelf-life" of the average lego buyer buy
continuing Jr-isation and it is less likely now than 10-15 years ago that a
child playing with Lego will continue to do so as an adult.
2)Ignoring current trends-TLC seems very slow to react to current trends
among the Lego building community.The best Trains,castles,Mechs are all
fan-made which is all the more amazing because of the limited resources that
most AFOLs have.With their stock of parts they can obviously release better
and not neccessarily more expensive castle and train sets.Yet they choose to
Jr-ise these lines as well.
3)Wrong lines Wrong people-Tying up the two points above,it does not make
sense for TLC to Jr-ise high cost items like Trains and the larger castle
sets because they only appeal to kids with an adult budget.No parent will
buy a $150 set for their kids unless its a special occasion and no AFOL will
spend that amount of money on juniorised sets.
4)Huge sets Huge prices-TLC will be better of limiting their sets to the
$50-$60 price range assuming Price per piece remains the same.I for one am
more likely to buy 7 or 8 $30 sets over a period of time than one $100.If
they did their math they can see where their $$$ comes from.
5)Licensing vs Inhouse-The last few years TLC seems to have gone licensing
crazy at the expense of in house developements.While stuff like StarWars and
HP may sell a lot I imagine a large % of profits goes into the licensing
deals.Strong selling in house brands like Pirates,Classic space and Classic
castles are potentially better money spinners.
I could ramble on about a lot more theme specific things like more generic
castle minifigs,or regional issues like bulk sales outside the US and
Europe.Yet at times I feel I'd be better of talking to a brick wall.Let's
just hope for our sakes as well as theirs that things start to improve.
Visu
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