Subject:
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Shopping Anecdote and Suggestions (Long)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Thu, 8 Mar 2001 17:05:57 GMT
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Dear Lego,
Some evesdropping from the Lego aisle at a Walmart in Northern Virginia last
night. A father in his 40s was with his son about 10 or 11. The son wanted
to buy a Roborider set. The father was discouraging him.
Father: You don't collect those.
Son: But it's neat.
Father: That's just a silly old action toy. You've got lots of Legos, but
those are different.
Son: Can't I buy it?
Father: You're not buying it. It is my money. I just don't want you to waste
it on something that you'll hardly play with.
Son: It's not much. I could buy it with my money.
Father: I'll get it for you if that is what you want--
Son (interrupting): No, if you don't want me to get it, I won't get it.
Father (continuing): --but I think you should think about how much you'll
play with something. The parts in that tube won't work with your other bricks.
Son: Then I won't get it.
(Both exit the Lego aisle without any Lego.)
Now I'd like to throw in my US$0.02 and later my 2 children as examples.
Attracting Children/Selling to Adults
This event would support the claim that the newer lines are targeted at
children and that they work. It also highlights the intergenerational
willingness-to-pay/ability-to-pay issue. Kids may have preferences for
certain new styles of play, but adults (with more of the cash) may not value
that. This is a bad situation; you're trapped on both ends. The key is
finding a way to both attract children (who are notoriously fickle) and sell
to adults (many of whom have experience and loyalty to the Lego toys *that
they grew up with.*)
Marketing the Character and the Value
So how does one attract children and at the same time hook those big
people with the cash? You've got to market to both. Children have to want
the things on the shelves today. But the things on the shelves today need to
call to the parents' minds all of the great memories they have of playing
with the Lego products of 20 years ago when they were children. The wonder
of all the building possibility that is inherent in your toys. This is part
of the adult emotional investment in the Lego brand, the Lego goodwill. If
the toy packages that say Lego today don't connect with the toy packages
that said Lego a generation ago, then it is going to be hard to sell to
adults. Those new packages won't be trading on the Lego investment in and by
adults.
I'm 38, and my first Lego set from the late 1960s was a box of basic
bricks and wheels one would use to build a car and trillions of other
things. We'd never seen Lego before, but my father got it for me on a family
vacation. Because of the similarity of many of today's bricks, not a week
goes by that I don't remember that set, that event and the wonder of what I
could do with those simple bricks.
On the other hand, the computer games, for example, may say Lego, but
they might as well say Sony, Procter & Gamble, or General Motors. In my mind
and in the minds of adults all over the world (not only those like us who
still play with Lego), you can put your good name on them, but they will
never really *be* Lego. And after giving Lego Island a try I will never buy
another one of them. You might as well be selling toothpaste. Moreover, my
children (boy 8, girl 7) reject your computer games as well. When they want
to play a computer game, they pick a first class computer game, not a
second-rate game that is trying to trade on the Lego name. When they want to
play with Lego they expect to put one piece of plastic on top of another.
Not much different than I did with that set in 1969. The act of sitting at a
computer racing little colored shapes around a screen is fundamentally
different from building structures with plastic shapes and swooshing them
around the house.
When people suggest you return to the core of the Lego brand, they
don't mean only sell those 1969 sets. They just mean to stay in character
with the brand. Lego is a strong brand, but not where it is out of
character. A brand is about character, not name. Lego clothes? Lego computer
action games? Lego clocks and pens and keychains? Those are out of character
with the brand.
Yes, Lego needs to expand the character of the brand, but always in a
way that is in keeping with the character of Lego and that enhances the
value of all Lego products. Many people have invested in the traditional
Lego Basic/Freestyle/Classic and System products. Investments of money,
household space and emotion. A new product that says Lego but doesn't make
those existing Lego investments more valuable has no advantage in regard to
the Lego brand over another new product that says Coca-Cola or Intel or IKEA.
Consider a Lego brand table saw. You could still use it for building
and even put a few studs on it. But the brand extension would fail, because
it is not in the character of the brand, and it does nothing to enhance the
value of the existing Lego brand capital that people have built up.
Some marketing people may have told you to follow the Barbie example.
There are Barbie phones and Barbie battery powered cars and Barbie computer
games. But Lego is not Barbie. Barbie is unique in that it is virtually
synonymous with a shade of pink and with girlness. Far more people associate
girlhood with Barbie than with sugar and spice and everything nice. Barbie
is about an identity (for better or worse) and Lego is about an activity --
remember, "play well."
The new Technic styles like Roborider/Slizers/Throwbot are consistent
with the character of Lego. But one would never know that by looking at the
packages or your catalogs. I only know that because I've tried them. But I
only tried them because I got a Throwbot as a gift. I would have never
bought one on my own, because just by looking at the package you can't see
how they can be integrated with "beam-and-pin-style" Technic and with System
creations. (Had Znap been better able to connect to Technic and System, I
think it would have had a greater potential to succeed. Instead, it just
bore the name Lego, but it wasn't Lego enough in character and didn't
enhance the value of all the other existing Lego toys.)
That Lego character and enhancing of the value of everything Lego is what
has to be marketed. The main chance you get for that is on the packages and
in the catalogs. The plastic Roborider tube may be economical in terms of
shelf-stacking, but it gives you so little useable surface area to showcase
the expanded play possibilities. It is very hard to look on the package to
see how much the set deconstructs to constituent parts, and what other
building possibilities those parts have. I think it would be best to sell
such sets in what I suspect would be cheaper cardboard boxes with more
surface area to show what the parts are and what else you can do with them,
especially as far as combining with System bricks. If that father could have
looked on a box to see that the parts *could* be used with regular bricks,
then I think he would have been a lot more willing to buy.
Let me just close with the example of my household.
My wife brought us out of the dark ages by buying the SeaSprint 9 for
my son. She does not have a history of Lego play. She just thought it looked
like a fun little toy for him. A few years later we have more Lego than we
have space to play with it, to her chagrin.
My son would love to get a Lego train set, but I can't afford to get
addicted to something that expensive, and they require too much of a space
committment. So no Lego trains for us. He loves Technic because of all of
the moving parts and contraptions he can make with them out of his own
imagination not just from instructions. Though Technic costs more than
System sets, I'll get them for him because I can see the connection between
the two that makes both types of parts more valuable.
My daughter likes to use Lego as an excuse to interact with others. So
she likes to search for parts rebuild sets according to the instructions or
to use parts to make sculptures and mosaics.
I like System with a little Technic added in because of the
possibilities of making imaginary earth and space vessels and buildings.
So my children and I love Lego products that are in character with the
Lego brand. (My children are more rabid anti-clone brick fanatics than I
am.) I hope that Lego will continue to expand and be very profitable and
increase in goodwill and brand value. I wish Lego all the best. I'm not a
kvetcher about the new product lines. But I'm concerned that the Lego
marketing research that is being done is missing the experience of consumers
in homes and store aisles.
Best wishes,
David Zorn
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Shopping Anecdote and Suggestions (Long)
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| David Zorn wrote: <snipped wonderfully insightful analysis by David> Right on, David! You are absolutely dead on. I wish someone from LEGO Direct would forward your post directly to Billund, because *this* is the kind of market analysis TLC needs, (...) (23 years ago, 8-Mar-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
| | | Re: Shopping Anecdote and Suggestions (Long)
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| "David Zorn" <david_zorn@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:G9w25x.5vH@lugnet.com... (...) Snip. WOW! I couldn't have said it better myself. LEGO _NEEDS_ to listen to this. What John said - send this to Billund guys. -Tim (23 years ago, 8-Mar-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
| | | Re: Shopping Anecdote and Suggestions (Long)
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| Another shopping story: I was (coincidently) in a Walmart last night. This was in Nashville. I too eavesdropped. A lady (maybe a grandmother) and a boy around 10 were in the same aisle. I was browsing for clearance Lego and had found a few sets. The (...) (23 years ago, 8-Mar-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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