Category: Lego

With the advancement of the Internet and social media with the ability to be able to communicate with everyone worldwide, information and ideas are abundant sometimes not shared with the right people or get into the hands of the right people. There is a misconception that crowdfunding, and crowdsourcing are the same thing, in essence they may be, but the main thing that separates the two is one is based off of money that you may or may not get a return on and the other is based of sharing of information essentially. Many people have experienced crowdsourcing many times and may have not realized it, sharing information or ideas with the company you work for, giving feedback on products you have purchased, and coming together as a community in your homeowners’ association meeting, sharing ideas to make your community a better place, are all ways of crowdsourcing in person. Throughout this paper we are going to discuss the impact that crowdsourcing has on online marketing strategy through the company LEGO.

LEGO Utilizing the Consumers to Help Build Its Organization

At first LEGO launched a pilot for their crowdsourcing site in 2008 which it was called LEGO CUUSOO, it was done as an experiment and it was only available in Japanese, but because the pilot did so well and was a success, they then expanded the beta version in 2011 for international use. Again, with much success for LEGO CUUSOO in 2012 they unified the platform and concept with the LEGO experience and rebranded into LEGO Ideas. With LEGO ideas the concept is for the consumers to go post what kind of LEGO products and kits they would like to see come to the market to be available for purchase. The ideas need to have a big support from the people to be considered and selected to be reviewed and then implicated, at least 10,000 votes are needed to be considered for review. If and idea is selected and goes into production to be produced. It doesn’t stop there, the winning idea gets recognized, the induvial who came up with the idea for the product for LEGO gets special treatment by the company but also, they will receive a one percent royalty in that product. So not only does LEGO use their consumers to help them come up with future ideas, but they reward the induvial whom ideas become a winner.

For example, in 1968 a film was produced and released called, ‘The Beatles: Yellow Submarine’. It was a British animated musical in which the yellow submarine was an iconic symbol and part of the movie, which someone submitted for it to become a LEGO kit, after getting the votes and being reviewed, it was approved and put into production and was a big success. Another success that was submitted by someone was the Women of NASA LEGO kit. It was a kit that showcased the most famous female scientist and astronauts whom were, Nancy Grace Roman, Margaret Hamilton, and Sally Ride.

How Does This Option of Crowdsourcing Influence Marketing Strategy?

This way of crowdsourcing influences the market strategy by touching base with the consumer directly, instead of the company doing their due diligence in figuring out what their consumers want, they get the opportunity to find out first hand what they want from them and decide to implement or not based of votes and reviews. By doing so it reduces the cost of customer acquisition, because all they must do is monitor what the consumers want make decisions based off their opinions. It eliminates the guessing game of what the world wants and has the world tell them directly what they are intrigued in wanting and purchasing.

The Impact of Mobile and Social Media Campaigns on Marketing Strategy for LEGO

LEGO has had such a successful marketing strategy utilizing its crowdsourcing campaign they never entered the world of social media and mobile applications up until 2014 when they created their Instagram page and uploaded their first Instagram video. What LEGO has done with their social media outlets is utilizes education and inspiration. Being that most users of LEGO products are for the younger children their content must be liked by parents if they still want adults to purchase their products for their children. They also utilize hashtags for the purposes to be able to categorize the content they receive from the consumers and have branched out the LEGO Ideas hashtags on social media for another form of being inspired with new ideas.

For example, LEGO posted on Instagram a meme of someone who is allergic to cats, and it has a female holding a robotic cat made from LEGOS and kissing the robotic cat. This was done to build humor for the adults. Another example is another post of LEGO’s Instagram page showcasing education of simple addition problem using LEGOs. Both of these ads on social media were also utilizing the use of hashtags. In the first example one of the hashtags used is #LEGOBOOST which advertises their line of products that allows the younger children to build creations with motors and sensors incorporating LEGOs. In the second example of education the hashtag that was used was #LEGODUPLO, which advertises another line of LEGO product used for toddlers to teach them life skills.

Conclusion

LEGO was founded in 1932, and eighty-seven years later they are still on top of their game being the leader in the toy industry. Not only are they dominating the toy industry they are one of the top crowdsourcing companies out, utilizing their consumers to essentially submit ideas being their version of a think tank, and then using the consumers to vote on the submissions and then review which will be the best. Not only is LEGO Idea a phenomenon, being early in the social media game they are targeting the correct audience which is the adults and the children and maximizing off of that.

References

1. Gilliland, N. (2018, August 16). How Lego uses Instagram to inspire fans of all ages. Retrieved from https://econsultancy.com/how-lego-uses-instagram-to-inspire-fans-of-all-ages/.
2. LEGO (@lego) Instagram photos and videos. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/lego/?hl=en.
3. Women of NASA 21312: Ideas: Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/women-of-nasa-21312.
4. Yellow Submarine 21306: Ideas: Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/yellow-submarine-21306.

1. Introduction:

Lego is known all over the world as one of the most successful toy manufacturing company that ensures its popularity with trust in their quality and strength of the product. Primarily, the brand manufactures the classic interlocking plastic bricks, however, they’ve diversified their range of products and have moved to the entertainment and experience industry as well. Various Lego-themed amusement parks called Legoland and movies and direct-to-video such as The Lego Movie, The Lego Batman Movie, and Lego Friends: Girlz for life.

The company was started by a carpenter, Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1932 in Billund, Denmark. He derived the name of the company from the Danish words “leg godt” which translates to Play well. Initially, Ole Kirk only made wooden toys but slowly shifted to another range inspired from the frameworks of a British toy known as “Kidd craft Self-Locking Building Bricks”. They launched their own version of wooden bricks that allowed kids to make elaborate structures that they had not imagined. However, the designs still lacked some structural integrity, and thus, after a devastating and massive fire at the warehouse, the company switched to making the patented standard Lego’s stud-and-tube configuration with plastic. The company has now become the world’s largest company (in terms of revenue) with this same design. It has also beaten Mattel, one of its biggest competitors and former rank one in the toy industry, in 2015 with sales up to US$ 2.1 billion. The company is currently headed by Niels B. Christiansen, the new CEO of 2017.

Social media has been a major aspect of Lego’s marketing strategy and has created a ginormous effect on its sales. Their aim has always been to drive sales but they don’t restrict themselves to that. Instead, creating value for a customer takes priority. Lars Silber Bauer Anderson, the Senior Global Director of Social Media and Video, in an interview, in fact, said that they try to engage people to build stronger relationships by providing them with more ideas to play using their product. In a conference, he also talks more about their strategy. He mentions, “We want to be always testing out whatever new creative tools that Instagram or the others are coming up with. We want to learn from it, we want to try it out, we want to play around with it like we were kids who just got new toys.” With their innovative ways to keep customers engaged such as Lego Ideas, which give users a platform to submit ideas for Lego items to be transformed into potential sets that are sold worldwide, have impacted their sales to a large extent. They aim to sell an experience every day and in return hope to sell a product every month.

Lego has a wide spread approach and is on almost every platform. The company started with YouTube first in 2005 where they would regularly share content on their models and create content related to it. There now exists 7 other pages of Lego on the platform that cater to various needs of its consumers with over 7 million followers. Lego also joined Facebook in 2005 and currently has 13,331,652 likes and 13,282,278 followers. On Twitter, Lego has 611k followers currently and has been on the platform since May 2011. Finally, Lego joined the youngest social media of the Big Four- Instagram in 2012 and has garnered over 4.4 million followers with 2776 posts of theirs. With this premise in mind, of the mammoth presence that Lego has built over social media, we will explore in more detail by tracking its activity and engagement and analyzing it, in this report.

2. Research methodology:

a. Duration of data collection:

The data regarding Lego has been collected over a period of 1 month ranging from 4th July 2019 to 4th Aug 2019.

b. Social media monitoring tool used:

The Social Media Monitoring tool that has been used for deriving all the data regarding our brand of choice has been Brand24.

c. Rationale behind choosing the brand:

Everyone has their own Lego story, everyone remembers their first set, they remember the first time something that they built of Lego bricks. There can be very few brands as such as Lego’s. Originated by a Danish toy manufacturer named Ole Kirk Christiansen – a small-town goods store owner – it has developed in to a colossal brand on the planet. Now Worthing around $7.57 billion, It has now become world’s most valuable toy brand by a mile. According to consultancy Brand Finance, its brand value is measured up of factors including business performance and the value of the brand if it were to be licensed.

But the case wasn’t the same always as back in 2012, LEGO didn’t really GET social media, and wasn’t using it to anywhere near its full potential. But gradually LEGO has really turned the tables around, and not just in a ‘get up to speed with everyone else’ way. It regularly goes far more than to make digital work for its brand. Its series of Lego movies, tie-ins thrust Lego ahead of the likes of Apple, Ferrari, and Sony to become the most significant and financially successful brand on the planet. And Lego has pulled this off with grasping and enticing content for children and adults alike. That’s some story. And it’s an even more fascinating story to tell. From the recent launch of Lego movie Lego Ninjago in the US, it’s worth noticing how Lego rework the guidelines of brand modernization to become the boulder it is today.

3. Social media presence:

3.1 Social Media Tools Used:

As already highlighted above, Lego has established a huge presence in social media.

Below are the three Social media platforms where the brand enjoys a commendable position:

1. Instagram – This is the platform where Lego is recognised the most in terms of likes, shares, comments, etc. Instagram is probably the most important tool that the brand has used for its publicity.
2. Facebook – This platform is a close second to the previous one in terms of the parameters mentioned above. However, Facebook is a social media tool that helps Lego to gain the maximum reach to its customers.
3. YouTube – Being a platform that deals with videos majorly, this tool has helped Lego gain attention of its customer base through several educative videos on building, testing, and structuring their models for toys.

3.2 Social Media History:

The senior global director at Lego Group, Lars Silber Bauer says “We want to be always testing out whatever new creative tools that Instagram or the others are coming up with,

We want to learn from it, we want to try it out, we want to play around with it like we were kids who just got new toys.”

Silber Bauer initiated the presence of Lego in all the social media platforms from the scratch. Back in early 2007, Lego didn’t even have any Facebook page and today it is represented in almost all social media channels. It reaches to about 50 million people monthly and the key channel for the group is YouTube with over 7.8 million subscribers.

Lego social media presence is as listed below:

Social Media

1. Fa Facebook
2. Ins Instagram
3. Twitter
4. YouTube

Jo Joined in

1. Dec-2007
2. J Jul-2012
3. May-2011
4. O Oct-05

3.3 Social Media Measurement:

Lego recorded a maximum reach of 28 million and an average social media reach of 4.6 million during the observed period. The large volume of mentions of the brand on social media is an evidence of the fact that the brand has a healthy performance on social media. A sudden spike in mentions was observed on 07 July due to the trending hashtag #LEGOFACTS.

Lego’s Social Media presence is dominated by Facebook and this fact is advocated by the above chart which shows that 90% of the most influential authors for Lego operate on Facebook. These authors in turn exert a massive influence on the customers who use Lego’s products and that is precisely the reason why Facebook is one of the most active Social Media Platform for Lego. The other social media platforms follow trail.

The overall public responses and mentions are shown above along with the percentage increase in the last 30 days from (4th July – 4th August 2019). The report shows that Facebook and Instagram have got the highest responses in terms of social media. The detailed analysis is done below.

5 most popular mentions are shown above which are fetched from various social media and networking platforms to show the connectivity of LEGO with the fan-base.

3.4 Social Media Framework:

To analyze the brand’s social media communication strategy, we conducted a SWOT analysis. The following were our findings:

1. Strengths-

• a. Lego has a strong and loyal fan base that continuously interacts and engages with the brand.
• b. The number of followers on all the major social media sites is huge and they have a number of pages on the same platform catering to different needs.
• c. It collaborates with consumers to generate content (UGCs) via Lego Ideas that increases consumer connect
• d. The frequency of posts is pretty high which suggests an increased activity,
• e. They also work around themed posts based on current trends and pop culture.
• f. Collaboration with popular brands like they collaborated with Harley Davidson recently to make a Lego version of the bike. They also have collaborations with popular movie franchises such as Harry Potter.
• g. The content shared across all social media sites is consistent and creates a strong image of the brand.
• h. It is marketed as a means of expression. It doesn’t solely put their focus on kids, there are various posts where adults have been seen engaging and interacting with the brand and thus, appealing to all age groups.

2. Weakness-

• a. The brand hasn’t focused a lot on twitter and still lacks the same robust engagement and activity that it has on other platforms
• b. The communication lacks any conversation about LEGOLAND and its other offline engagement products

3. Opportunities-

• a. Launch of toys-to-life that allows physical figurines or action figures to connect inside the game
• b. Use of more influencers such as artists to expand their popularity and fan base.
• c. The expansion of the target group can also be done. The current image of the brand stigmatizes and limits itself to a kid’s brand. Lego can work on their products and also come up with an adult

4. Threats-

• a. Mattel is a close competitor and various other brands such as Funs Kool and remaining are catching up rapidly
• b. The signature make-up of a Lego is no longer a protected design and can be made and sold by anyone. It is difficult for Lego to fight that many lawsuits against such duplicates.

Consumer Solicited Content:

The number of influencers which affect customers have a minimum of 11k followers due to which their influence score lies in the range of 8-10. We observed that there were in all six brand influencers who seemed to have both positive as well as negative sentiment towards the brand. About 920 posts were posted by influencers with a score of 10 out of 10.

User Generated Content:

Users who had an influencer score below 8 were observed to have comparatively lesser influence. Number of posts by users: 6308Number of posts with positive sentiment: 4468. Number of posts with negative sentiment: 248

4. Brand Liking, Reach and Second-degree reach influence

Established in 1932, LEGO has been creating impact on countless generations since ages. LEGO created an obsession among the young generation and Social Media plays a pivotal role in marketing strategy. With the help of visual content the brand leverages engagement and build a steady online community.

LEGO on Facebook

The above metrics shows the total fan base and how much LEGO has gained as a fan aggregator in the last 30 days (4th July – 4th August 2019). It counts to around 36,500 and the organic fan growth in percentage is around 0.28% which shows a steady increase in brand following and admiration for a global brand like LEGO. The other social media handles have equally good response for LEGO.

The above is the time span (on Facebook) that signifies the time range of high engagement among the followers and fans of LEGO by the amount of posts that were made on Facebook.

LEGO on Instagram

LEGO has a got a follower base of 4.4 m in Instagram which is growing like an entropy as LEGO can connect to all age groups and having a count of 2700+ in posts. [image: ][image: ][image: ] The above report shows the average engagement of follwers of LEGO on Instagram along with likes and comments which truly resemble the organic reach of the brand among the mass.

The above are the popular Hashtags used on Instagram handle to create more engagement among the fan base of LEGO and percentage statistics are also given along with it.

LEGO on YouTube

From Social Blade reports it has been observed that LEGO has a grade A in terms of responses and views and has a subscriber rank of 690 which improved from 700+ in last one month. The video view rank of 84 has also improved from the 90+ figure in the last month.

A snapshot of YouTube statistics of LEGO has been mentioned below which shows how much active LEGO is in YouTube with an average view of 4 million per video with a daily rise in the number of subscribers with a subscriber base of around 7.7 million.

YouTube projections by Social Blade:

The below report shows the total and average monthly views of videos of LEGO in YouTube. Though the total view is always increasing but there are many spikes and creeks in the curve for monthly and average monthly views of videos of LEGO in YouTube.

Sentiment Analysis:

In 2015, Brand Finance named Lego the World’s most powerful brand due to its continuous success and rock-soli strategy for social media marketing. The strategy was quite successful but it also had to face various challenges like the age restriction on social media sites. Being a children’s toy, it had to redirect its strategy to keep older adults engaged. It has controlled its social media presence in a manner that has enhanced not just it’s presence but also sales and marketing. We will now look at the sentiment analysis conducted in this month-long study. We will analyse the responses or direct posts made on Lego. The sentiment analysis suggests that it is highly positive with 22 K (+21 K (+1433%)) responses and negative responses are reduced to just 3545 (+3379 (+2036%)) responses.

Average Reach = Average Reach / Average Likes = 4833333.3333/90000 = 53.7037

Click Through Rate = number of unique clicks / the number of times it was shown = (2.7 M/145 M) *100 = 1.862

The positive sentiment analysis could be because of various reasons such as the uniquely tailored content that is specifically made keeping in mind the target audiences and platforms. The relevant content that they put forward are in line with the current trends and pop culture. In fact, the content has grown self-promotional. The insights for the communication are driven by Big Data analysis. The insights are then identified and selected to create the content that now exists. Silber Bauer says, “the company is all about creating a culture of understanding the consumer, your brand’s DNA, and then empowering people to jump on great content or consumer engagement when they see it.”

5. Summary

LEGO is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by The Lego Group. It is the company’s flagship product, which consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks, gears, figurines, and other parts. It has shown tremendous growth that can be attributed majorly to its social media strategy. Through this study, we found that Lego’s presence is widely distributed and is present on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest. Instagram has the highest engagement rate. It was found that YouTube has the maximum subscribers with the content distributed over 8 channels and Facebook has the greatest number of likes.

LEGO as a brand has shown a great presence and visibility among fans and followers in various social media platforms since many years. The brand engages with the mass on social media through visual content. LEGO has got a fan base of 13.4 Million with an average gain of fans at 0.28% in the last month with a count of 36.5 k plus which has a steady rate of growth. Around 4.4 million people are following LEGO in Instagram and LEGO has around 2800 posts in Instagram with immensely popular hashtags like #lego, #legoland, #legofans, #legostagram, and many more that bind the brand with the fans. As per the Social Blade report LEGO has got 690th Subscriber rank in YouTube with 84th in Video rank with a view of around 1 Billion in videos posted by LEGO in YouTube. LEGO is performing extremely good and steadily in other platforms like Pinterest.

Toys are a fun and necessary part of each child’s development. Totally different materials like wood, clay, paper, and plastic are wont to create toys. Several things are designed to function toys, one amongst the foremost well-liked toys is Lego and additionally popular toys of all time and could be a house name everywhere the world. Around 300 million people all over the world play or have played with lego. The name Lego was introduced by putting together the first two letters of the Danish words meaning ‘play well’. (Mair, A., 1988.) That, from the beginning, was the aim of the markers of lego to enable children to ‘play well’. Building wooden toys in Denmark, Ole Kirk Kristiansen realised that plastic would be the ideal material for the purpose (Anon, 2011.) Hearing and doing the word of Jesus means that we will build our lives well.

Lego is a useful innovation because it is not just a toy, helps to develop experiences in the classroom that bring learning concepts to life. Lego mini figures and bricks with other peers gives children the same skills they would learn in dramatic play or from using a dollhouse so Lego users have an extended tradition of innovation and sharing their innovations with each other. In 2005, Lego set created the Ambassador Program to supply a quick and direct approach for the corporate and its fans to induce into contact with each other (Antorini, Y.M., Muñiz, Jr, A.M. & Askildsen, T., 2012.).

LEGO is synonymous with innovation in corporate circles. But innovation is something that has to be rekindled every few years, even at the LEGO company itself. Famous for its plastic, interlocking toy blocks, the corporate was started back in 1932 in Denmark, and has been better-known for its spirit of innovation. Lego has been increasing growing in sales at 24% per year every year for the past five years and growing profits at 40% per year every year for the last five years (Jeo, 2013).

Lego wasn’t simply restricted to toys however it conjointly entered a far broader area within the market. It started as a toy producing company however it had conjointly become a good merchandiser. Following are the product or services in its promoting combine that is obtainable to any or all customers: Video Games by Lego Media International Limited include Lego Island, Star Wars, Batman more recent being a game based on The Lego Movie (Sandwell, I., 2017), Board games such as Lego Games (Minotaurus, Creationary, Ramses Pyramid), Films and Television are the release of the movies led to the shortage of Lego products in the store and there were huge amounts of pre-orders (Anon, 2010). As well as children’s clothing of Lego Wear clothes by Kabuki, a Danish company, under the license from Lego group. It produces clothes for children until the age of twelve.

Lego is headquartered in Denmark and has its major production units within the UK, US, Singapore, and China. Lego is gift in around 132 retail stores around the world, most of that are gift within the U.S. Retail stores aren’t the sole places that carry the choice of Lego toys however you’ll be able to obtain them at flick theaters, amusement parks and common division stores and toy stores. The toys are exported throughout the world so that the toys are made more accessible to the people. The toys can also be bought online from several sites such as Amazon, eBay etc. India also received its first Lego outlet in 2014 at Chennai, Tamil Nadu and it is sold by FunSkool under a license.

Lego was made popular not just through the conventional media but also through unique marketing strategies. Lego, once it started off, consisted of simply plastic bricks little|and little|and tiny} figurines that you may use to form small structures. It went more and connected themes to the Lego set sets (Andrews, J., 2002). The themes were an inspiration from cartoons, comics, movies and video games. In addition to that, there were conventional marketing strategies followed such as Online, TV, and print media. Hence this concludes the Lego marketing mix.

The LEGO Company is a very good example of the importance of understanding the target market. The main target market for the LEGO Company is children between the ages of 1-15 years. Having said this, whilst kids are the main target audience for the LEGO company, LEGO understands that parents are also the key target market for their business.

Four Main Target Profiles

1. Young children who are encouraged to learn: interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) related activities; actively engage in learning programs; LEGO MindStorms NXT is a collaboration with MIT; first LEGO League Tournament for youngsters aged 9-16; children aged between 1-16.
2. Children fans of movie Tie-Ins: children who are big fans of a movie that have just been released and have purchased LEGO sets for these movies, regularly watch their favourite movie characters on phone/tablet.
3. Nostalgic parents: parents who have played LEGO when they were younger have fond memories of LEGO as a child; connecting parents to children; multigenerational appeal to LEGO Toys and licensed products.
4. Nostalgic Millennials: very loyal to the LEGO brand and the other big brands they are associated with; luxury product; people have emotional connection with means higher spending/consumption rate.

Brand Personality

LEGO’s brand personality is portrayed through its marketing communication strategy, the history of the brand and nostalgic parents. Competency is the main characteristic of the LEGO brand personality, they are commonly acknowledged as a reliable, intelligent and successful brand. “Our mission at the LEGO Group is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow”, from this mission statement we can clearly see that LEGO places huge emphasis on education and childhood development. Since LEGO was founded in 1932, they have focused on providing entertainment and fun while ensuring safety for children. Like people, the success of an organisation depends on how well things are functioning internally. With every brand comes a backstory, LEGO wanted to add depth to its brand personality. A few years ago, the LEGO Group created a compelling brand story video explaining the making of the company. This brand story gives the customer insight into the personal challenges faced by the founder of LEGO, this adds a more human side to the brand which helps to increase customer loyalty (Agius, 2019).

The LEGO brand personality is about learning, education and making memories. If LEGO were a person, they would be smart, innovative, friendly and loyal. These are the key personality traits of a brand.

Brand Values

LEGO’s brand value increased significantly over the last few years, to be precise the brand grew 68% in one year. The LEGO Group has both functional and emotional values associated with the brand. The emotional value of a brand can really strengthen the relationship between the brand and the customer. LEGO is very good at attaching positive emotions to their products. They have implemented many marketing strategies and campaigns that attached emotional value to consumer’s life. As a brand, LEGO have used their insightful knowledge to create a strong relationship between their consumers and LEGO by provoking the consumer’s emotions. As well as that, LEGO has been around since the 1930’s, which means that parents have an emotional attachment to the brand as they mas associate LEGO with happy childhood memories. This is vital to LEGO’s success to target the parents as they are the ones with all the purchasing power. Unlike other brands such as Disney or Coca-Cola, LEGO are more subtle about trying to engage human emotions in the sense that they rely on the long-running history and loyalty of their brand.

LEGO® Education has been working with teachers and educational specialists for 37 years to ensure playful learning experiences that make learning enjoyable for the children. The key function of LEGO® is learning and skill development. The LEGO Group places a huge emphasis on education and learning. The system of learning employed by the LEGO group is STEM (Science, Technology, Education and Mathematics). The brand promises to build confidence and creativity within young children. The company employs the ‘’4C Framework’’ approach. The four phases are:

1. Connect: the topic is introduced; this is the stage where the kids have time to explore the topic and ask questions.
2. Construct: each task in this phase includes a building activity that advances learning and promotes new ideas that can be used in later tasks.
3. Contemplate: students reflect on what they have learned and discuss with other students.
4. Continue: Student use knowledge acquired from old tasks to build new tasks.

User Image

User imagery describes who or what type of person would use the product/brand. LEGO portray their user image across their website and social media platform as young children to teenagers who are hungry to learn and play. They want their users to be depicted as being adventurous, creative and intelligent.

International Strategy / Cultural Strategies

The global toy industry is a billion-dollar industry that is dominated by five main players including the long-standing LEGO Company. As technology is constantly evolving and becoming a regular part of children’s entertainment and learning activities, LEGO has had to compete with these technological advancements. LEGO is available in 130 countries worldwide.

LEGO had years of unbroken sales growth for 50 year and the LEGO brick faced very little competition. A current and growing trend globally is that children are growing up faster and moving on from traditional toys and childhood games a lot younger than a few years ago The LEGO Group faced its first losses in 1998. After this loss, LEGO decided to sign a partnership deal with Warner Bros in relation to launching LEGO Products based on Harry Potter’s Magic Universe (LEGO.com, 2019).

This deal was a major factor in their consistent success and having tie-in with large movie franchises is their main international marketing strategy.

LEGO recently released their first global marketing campaign in 30 years. This campaign was aimed to spark children’s creativity so that they can develop the necessary skills to lead in the future.

Trend Followers

The LEGO Group are trend followers not trend setters. This type of marketing strategy has been undeniably effective for their brand. They utilize content marketing by banking off the success of other brands, for example Star Wars. Companies who employ a trend following strategy do not aim to foresee the future trend, but rather they make sure they are in the right position to work with the brand who has created the new trend. LEGO is associated with some of the biggest movies franchise, for example; Disney and Star Wars.

Introduction to corporate social responsibility:

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR means that corporations have a responsibility to take care of the consequences of their actions, including economic, social, and environmental impacts. This means that a company is looking after the indigenous people of the land that they are working on, taking care of the native animals or plants and other factors. CSR entitles that they are a positive driving force contributing to society, instead of a negative influence on society.

Company Overview

Lego is a Danish company based in Billund, Denmark. Its main output is small interlocking plastic bricks, but it owns several theme parks around the world. It was created by a man named Ole Kirk Kristiansen in 1949 and has had an extremely successful career in the toy industry.

CSR Analysis

This company demonstrates great corporate social responsibility. They help not only the local community around them but also on a global scale. They have ‘launched the Emergency Relief Response Policy along with the LEGO Foundation’ to help out families who have suffered due to wars and natural disasters. They have also run a program called ‘build the change’. In this program Lego allows children to build images of a better future, may it be schools, parks, or other essential places in their community that could be improved for a brighter future for the children around the world. Although they are already off to a roaring start, there are a few aspects of their business that they could improve. For example, they could find a more sustainable resource to use for their bricks. The plastic material that they use is not sustainable and is ruining the environment. Even if such a resource doesn’t exist yet, they can put more money and effort into creating or finding one. They treat their workers fairly, which is always a good thing to look for in CSR.

Conclusion

The social responsibility that Lego displays is good, but there is a margin for improvement. The benefit of CSR for their company is it draws people to their company and products. When people hear how they help the community, they will be more inclined to support the company, buy their products, and come to their theme parks. On the flip side, if people know that Lego bricks are made from no sustainable material, they may be less likely to buy Lego products. Proportionate to their size and power, Lego is pretty good at their corporate social responsibility. They have a lot of power and sway, and if they were more involved in the community they could make a much bigger change in the world. Of course, in saying this it must be remembered that Lego is a toy-making company, and not designed to focus on charity and helping the community. On the scale of just plain old CSR, Lego is doing quite a lot of work improving the community as a whole. When you compare Lego to some other companies, you may differ in your view on their current status of CSR, as some companies may either have terrible morals or excellent ones. Some people create their companies solely to help others, which will raise their CSR, whereas others treat their workers in terrible ways. Therefore Lego is rather good at its CSR.

Bibliography:

1. https://www.lego.com/en-au/aboutus/sustainability/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego

Discussion

The Lego serious play methodology is a problem solving and insight building approach or strategy whose aim is to enhance creative thinking among all participants in organizations (Gauntlett, 2007).Through the methodology, organizations are able to have the employees and shareholders think and express or speak their true feelings without the fear of intimidation.

Through it also, organizations have an opportunity to have everyone on board in the discussion of organizational issues which stimulates learning as well as thinking. The thinking and learning by all participants in organizations leads to new ideas or insights in regard to particular organizational issue(s) (Lockwood & Walton, 2009).

The methodology is applied in many sectors, key among them education and arts as well as in business. It is related to constructivist theory by Papert, which holds that problems are mere constructions in peoples’ minds and thus the solutions to the problems lie within peoples’ minds, that is, people can construct the solutions to their problems (Sioukas, 2003.p.101)

In business setting, the methodology is based on the philosophy that business problems or issues have their solutions from within, meaning that the members or shareholders of a business are the people with the solutions, only that they do not realize.

It is also based on the thinking that real solutions lie in having realistic action plans which addresses the real problems or issues but not the symptoms of the problems (SIGCHI Group, 2006).

The methodology is implemented through facilitation by an expert in the same. It involves organizing workshops for all members and shareholders of a business whereby they are engaged with the problem or issue at hand. During the workshop, everyone is treated equally and each and every one’s idea and thinking is acknowledged.

The participants are provoked to think and imagine of solutions to the prevailing problem. Their responses, reactions and ideas are all recorded. In some cases, the participants in the workshops are given some physical exercises which reflect the problem at hand to perform (Jenkins & Jenkins, 2006).

Through this physical activity which is performed merely as a play, the facilitator or expert in the methodology observes how the participants approach the issue(s) and thus gets to know various versions of dealing with the problem or issue at hand (Ventola, 1987).

The methodology increases innovation and leadership attributes through getting everybody on board and having them think about the way forward in regard to a certain issue of concern to a busies or organization.

It enhances leadership in the sense that it is undertaken in groups which must have defacto leaders, who get the opportunity to realize their potential in leadership thus ending up with many people with leadership skills within the organization or business.

These defacto team or group leaders become very instrumental in guiding, influencing and inspiring the other employees or shareholders of the business or organization (Gauntlett, 2008).

It enhances innovation in that everybody is given an opportunity to think without intimidation. The idea behind this argument is that people who are motivated to think, and whose thinking is acknowledged are able to think freely without any difficult or bias, consequently coming up with new and independent ideas.

At the end, the business ends up with very many new ideas which can be transformed into innovations (McGoey, 2011).

The methodology is not applicable in corporate businesses which have rigid administrative structures; for example, a bureaucratic organizational structure. This is because bureaucratic organizational structures do not allow for team work, employee or shareholders creativity nor do they value group synergy (Kurosu, 2009).

It is mostly suited for organizations which are very flexible in their approach to achieving their mission, and more so, organizations which operate in a dynamic socio-cultural, economic and political environment, thus the need of an ongoing problem solving mechanism for overcoming challenges as they come (Design Publications, 1984).

References

Design publications. (1984).Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.Volume 338 of ACM conference proceedings series. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery.

Gauntlett,D. (2007).Creative explorations: new approaches to identities and audiences. New York, NY: Routledge.

Gauntlett,D. (2008). Media, gender and identity: an introduction. 2nd Ed. New York, NY: Routledge.

Jenkins, J.C & Jenkins, M.R. (2006).The 9 disciplines of a facilitator: leading groups by transforming yourself. Volume 3 of J-B International Association of Facilitators.Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

Kurosu, M. (2009).Human Centered Design: First International Conference, HCD 2009, Held as Part of HCI International 2009, San Diego, CA, USA, July 19-24, 2009 Proceedings.Volume 5619 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Zürich: Springer.

Lockwood,T., & Walton,T. (2009). Corporate Creativity: Developing an Innovative Organization. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.

McGoey, D. (2011). A powerful tool designed to enhance innovation and business performance. Retrieved on September 1^st 2011 from https://www.lego.com/en-us/seriousplay?domainredir=www.seriousplay.com

SIGCHI Group, (2006).Proceedings of the 19th Annual ACM Design Publications.(1984).Industrial design: ID., Volume 31. New York, NY: University of Michigan.

Sioukas, T.(2003).The solution path: a step-by-step guide to turning your workplace problems into opportunities. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, p.101.

Ventola,E.(1987).The structure of social interaction: a systemic approach to the semiotics of service encounters. New York, NY: F. Pinter.

Rivalry assessment

When it comes to defining the key rivals of the company, one must admit that LEGO has a range of impressively powerful adversaries to fight in the toy market.

Among the key ones, Mattel with its famous Barbie brand and the availability to produce toys based on Marvel and Disney characters and Hasbro with its powerful marketing strategy and a range of recognizable brands, deserve to be mentioned (Rivkin, Thomke and Reversdorfer 4).

Barriers to new entry

After an admittedly long period of crisis and the following revival, LEGO is ready to introduce new products into the market. Despite its comparatively long hiatus, the organization seems to have enough potential to regain its position as one of the top toy companies in the global market.

Unfortunately, LEGO may face some major obstacles in the course of introducing its product, the cost for the molds being the key one (Rivkin, Thomke and Reversdorfer 5).

Substitutes

Unfortunately, entering the global market presupposes acquiring a number of clones, which are going to be less successful yet manage to snatch a chunk of the innovative organization’s success and fame. The niche, which LEGO used to take in the toy market, is no longer empty – the organization has to share its market place with its numertous clones, including CoCo, BestLock, and many others (Rivkin, Thomke and Reversdorfer 6).

Power/dependence relationship with buyers

Among the key specifics of toys as a specimen of merchandise, the inconstancy of their success among their target audience must take the first place.

Toys are linked to fads directly; as soon as a specific fad goes away, the interest of the target audience towards a certain line of toys vanishes without a trace (Rivkin, Thomke and Reversdorfer 1).Therefore, LEGO is highly dependent on its customers, their demands and wishes, as well as the swings in their affection towards certain characters (Rivkin, Thomke and Reversdorfer 1).

Power/dependence relationship with suppliers

The degree, to which LEGO is dependent on its suppliers, is also quite impressive. The changes in the organization’s supply chain made in 2003 have clearly improved LEGO’s production process, making it structured and organized. However, with the necessity to capture new markets, LEGO may need to reconsider its logistics in order to cut the costs for transportation.

Industry key success factors

Seeing that LEGO is highly dependent on the swings in children’s attitude towards the company’s products, it will be reasonable to assume that the organization’s ability to incorporate both traditional and modern media as a tool for promoting its product to kids is the best solution possible and the greatest opportunity for the organization to increase its net profit.

For instance, the recent The LEGO movie craze could be used as a tool for promoting the toys to children.

Driving forces

With all the negative factors threatening LEGO, the company still has a chance to regain its position in the global market. Among the key driving forces, which will inevitably make the company triumph, the qualities such as LEGO’s unlimited playing potential, as well as the fact that it is designed for both boys and girls, with no major age restrictions, must be mentioned.

Encouraging creativity and development of the child’s motor functions, logical thinking and creativity, LEGO will remain a popular toy; what the company needs now is an impressive and efficient promotion campaign.

Works Cited

Rivkin, Jan W., Stefan H. Thomke and Daniela Reversdorfer. LEGO (A): The Crisis. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School. 2013. Print.

In the XXI century, the Earth became a kind of big innovation lab, with multiple advances in technology and science. The Internet makes educational innovations spread throughout the world, and the globalization of economics allows big companies to introduce their products to billions of people with various cultural backgrounds. Due to globalization and rapid change in technology and demand, such companies as LEGO needed transformational innovation. However, technological advancement and the diversification of products were not enough for the breakthrough. One of the most significant forces affecting LEGO was innovation – the phenomenon that is the most critical for progress nowadays.

Introducing new categories into a line of products does not always foster sales. For instance, in the mid-1990-s, LEGO’s sales dropped, yet new types of goods such as books and TVs appeared in the product choice set. As more cheap analogs for the LEGO toys appeared on the shelves of retail stores, the company’s sales experienced a decrease. Retailer stores took over specialized shops, creating a niche for multiple toy manufacturers.

The production process remained too expensive for the company, whereas many other industry players made their toys in low-cost countries. Moreover, LEGO design was assumed too complicated and tedious for children who preferred to play computer games and explore virtual worlds. The LEGO group needed to brainstorm to reconsider its policy and renew the assortment of goods.

Being up-to-date and monitoring tendencies in popular culture can lead to unprecedented growth. At the beginning of the XXI century, the company experienced rapid growth caused not least due to the new line of products based on popular movies and books such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. By changing the paradigm, the company was involved in making computer games and movies, building LEGOLAND amusement parks, and manufacturing clothes. These transformations, in their turn, created a need for gifted young specialists who could bring a fresh perspective into the design. Another growth driver was an element of story-telling that made the process of playing more captivating. Nevertheless, using popular culture tendencies was not enough for covering all the expenses.

The use of cutting-edge technology, better IT-platforms for sales, and the rationalization of the budget were just the first steps of the plan. The company lacked an innovative vision, which would create new play experiences adequate to the context of the contemporary amusement world. Having reconsidered the priorities of the company that make it unique, LEGO marketing director Birthe Jenson and her team proposed to make the LEGO toys more realistic.

However, this initiative was not innovative enough to make a significant shift. The company also struggled to cut expenditures on new lines of products and make toys less complicated. One of the steps made by the LEGO brand was inventing an online tool, which made it possible to construct models virtually and then buy necessary details for a traditional toy. Innovation is a powerful force on its own, but it should be combined with technology and custom-oriented policy to make a change.

Finally, innovation is the force that helps the LEGO brand remain up-to-date and represent new product lines. Combined with the authenticity of a brand and decreased expansion, innovation is a crucial force for financial success. Change is closely related to the customer’s satisfaction as the tendencies in popular culture, science, and technology influence both customers and product lines. However, innovation is the main force that transforms traditional ways of thinking and designing into more flexible, adaptive, and creative ones.

Introduction

The ability to adapt to the changing environment, customer demands, and market forces is vital to the success of a business. The mindset and practices that have propelled a company to success are not necessarily the ones that would help stay successful in the future. It is often advisable to discard the elements that drag the company down, even if they have been a part of it for half a century. These elements can be regarded as metaphorical sacred cows, which are expected to be exempt from any form of metaphorical animal cruelty. This irrational reverence can make a business go bankrupt before giving up on the familiar but obsolete practices. That exact fate almost befell LEGO, one of the most recognizable toy manufacturers in the world. Only through cutting the unnecessary ideas and changing the litigious mindset could the company save itself from the brink of ruin.

Background

Lego has been a part of popular culture for decades. The company was started in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter. In the beginning, he was producing buildings and furniture, but then an economic depression in Denmark made that business model untenable. He switched to making smaller objects, such as ladders, boards, and other small furniture. Christiansen was making toys for children on the side from leftover materials, but eventually, he made that his factory’s leading product and renamed the company to LEGO in 1934 (Lauwaert, 2008). They were making toys from wood until 1960 when a fire destroyed their stored stock. After that, they began making toys exclusively from plastic, as did many other toy manufacturers. The war effort required vast amounts of wood and metal, creating a shortage of these materials for other industries, which has made plastic a more viable alternative for toymakers.

The shift to plastic as the primary material vastly broadened the possibilities of play. Although there was public prejudice against the use of plastic in the toy industry, LEGO got ahead of the criticism by employing higher-quality materials and devising a particular method of manufacturing that was not possible with wood. They began producing blocks with the stud-and-tube coupling system that is used to this day. The plastic blocks that appeared in 1958 were built with a very low tolerance, thus making the constructions sturdier and more rigid, while still capable of being disassembled. The use of wooden blocks necessitated using individual slots for windows and doors, but the new plastic blocks did not. While the wooden blocks could only be used to create simple and basic structures, plastic allowed for greater complexity and freedom of expression. Children could build not only simple houses, but also cars, planes, or even skyscrapers.

The shift to plastic blocks with stud-and-tube couplings also meant interchangeability between sets. Any purchased collection of blocks united into one set would fit together with any other, allowing children to construct spontaneously, drawing ideas from their imagination. The plastic-molding machines also allowed LEGO to create much smaller pieces than was previously possible. They began creating mini-figurines of humans, animals, hairstyles, flowers, hats, and furniture. They could make the spontaneous construction even more detailed, informing the culture of creativity and integration.

The Brink of Ruin

The company had been successful and profitable for many years, which is why, when difficulties finally began, the managers were complacent and unprepared to deal with them. Lauwaert (2008) writes that in the late 1990s, it became apparent that LEGO’s brand was getting weaker. The children of that time were less interested in the construction play that has been LEGO’s staple for several decades. The perception was that the traditional “brick” was not technologically advanced or “cool” enough to attract the attention of modern children. The technical innovation and the Kids Growing Older Younger phenomenon contributed to the lessening popularity of LEGO. The company had long-term plans to strengthen their brand by that time, and they were fast-tracked. The company began diversifying into theme parks, video games, and children’s media.

The core concept of LEGO’s toys up to that point was assembly. The primary play activity, according to LEGO’s branding and corporate perception, was building what the instructions directed the player to make. As part of the diversification and renovation, the company started marketing its product with messages about imagination and creativity. The products themselves, however, failed to live up to these messages. As the company noted that the assembly aspect of play became less popular, they started introducing sets with unique parts and pre-assembled structures that did not fit anywhere else. They were supposed to be quick to assemble and designed to be played with, which went directly against the marketing messages and the spirit of the previous products. The traditional brick-based sets were selling well, but the toys like Galidor or Znap were extremely unpopular, and the unique nature of their parts drove manufacturing costs up (Moore, 2015). In a misguided move to distance its brand from the plastic brick, LEGO created a product that went against creativity, earning the company no favors among the press and the customers.

Another part of the company’s diversification strategy was aligning itself with existing properties such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. These two franchises were very profitable, but only when a movie was released (Moore, 2015). The income generated from selling these themed sets did not cover the increasing cost of production. Some of these properties were also unpopular, and the licensing fees with media giants such as Disney were an enormous financial burden (Lauwaert, 2008). These measures resulted in the opposite of what LEGO planned: the brand image became even more diffuse. The business ventures that were unrelated to making toys also contributed to that diffusion.

The only successful line of toys that was borne out of this strategy was the Bionicle. The line began as an attempt to attract young boys who were not interested in construction, but physical activity and role-playing. The Bionicle’s primary drive was to be seen as “cool” and compete with other established brands in that demographic, such as Pokemon or Star Wars (Fonnesbaek & Melbye Andersen, 2005). LEGO focused on delivering a story that was told through various media and drew public interest to toys. The toys themselves were easy to assemble, and the advertising was cinematic and compelling. The premise was a universal story about the fight between good and evil, which reached the audience across the planet. The line achieved great success, improved the perception of LEGO among the target audience, and earned the company large sums of money in the process. The toys remained popular for years and generated direct-to-video animated movies, books, and video games. Unfortunately, Bionicle was an exception rather than the rule, and it could barely keep the company from failing while a permanent solution was sought.

The Killing of the Sacred Cow

One of the most harmful mindsets in the company was the assurance that the situation was under control and that the problem could be dealt with by merely creating more products. However, according to Mark Stafford, while the company was months away from bankruptcy, nobody in the higher echelons knew how much the production cost them, or how much revenue the different sets pulled (Feloni, 2014). When a then-consultant Jorgen Vig Knudstorp analyzed the company’s finances, production, and customer input, he reported that the company would continue to lose money. However, the top management of LEGO did not believe him and asserted that they “did not see things that way” (Ng, 2017). In 2004, Knudstorp was appointed CEO by Ole Kirk Christiansen’s grandson and began his “back to the brick” strategy. The pre-made parts of the new sets were discontinued, and the number of unique pieces produced by LEGO was halved. Every property that had nothing to do with producing toys was sold off, a third of the workforce was let go, and even the executive offices were downsized (Moore, 2015). The toy lines were standardized to cut production costs, but it also resulted in increased compatibility.

Another necessary change was the creation of a more open and creative environment for the adult fans of LEGO. Previously, the company was rather protective of its trademark, but in the 2000s, LEGO became more customer-oriented. The employees were instructed to engage with the fans and participate in online communities. An innovative Mindstorms kit, which allowed users to create and program robots based on LEGO blocks, was updated by building a team of dedicated fans. The company embraced their adult fans’ tendency to hack and tinker with these kits and even allowed it in the Terms of Service (Lauwaert, 2008). The younger fans of LEGO were directed to forums and digital construction tools, allowing them to build with virtual LEGO blocks. The company also began some initiatives to collect ideas from its fans, which resulted in some community-suggested toy lines. Some fans were even hired as designers for future sets of toys to revitalize the creative force of the company. These new designers knew both the product and the consumers, and that move was incredibly beneficial.

Conclusion

The “back to the brick” strategy that Knudstorp employed brought the company back to its roots. The core competence of LEGO was making interchangeable plastic parts that could be combined to build something from scratch. The sacred cow that needed to be sacrificed was the reliance on fad-based toy lines, the rigid protective mindset, and the blind assurance of the management that everything was fine. LEGO was stretching itself thin by deluding itself into thinking that more product meant more success. The opposite was the case: streamlining the core product and playing to its strengths allowed LEGO to survive and thrive while diversifying too much almost destroyed it.

Some sacred cows, like quality toys and the focus on the consumer’s imagination, should be revered and cherished. Others, like outdated trademark protection and mindless growth, need to be mercilessly sacrificed. The company did not go bankrupt because select individuals in it had the resolve to oppose the accepted worldview and dramatically change the entire structure. They cut the excess spending and focused on bringing the single core competence into the XXI century. Nowadays, LEGO is one of the most successful toy brands on the planet, and for a good reason.

References

Feloni, R. (2014). These are the disastrous LEGO kits that almost ruined the company. Web.

Fonnesbaek, J., & Melbye Andersen, M. (2005). Story selling: how LEGO told a story and sold a toy. Young Consumers, 6(3), 31–39.

Lauwaert, M. (2008). Playing outside the box – on LEGO toys and the changing world of construction play. History and Technology, 24(3), 221–237.

Moore, R. (2015). The rise and fall (and rise again) of LEGO – brick by brick. Web.

Ng, D. (2017). How a rookie brought Lego back from the brink. Web.

Introduction

Monitoring the implementation of the solutions plays the role of a tool for identifying errors and flaws in their content. When they are found, it becomes necessary to make changes, amendments, and clarifications to the executable solution (Coulson-Thomas, 2016). After analyzing the first developments, the Lego Group management should make adjustments to them, including the participants of the processes and their areas of responsibility. Reassessment of business processes, as well as adjustment and validation of a specific business model for the Lego Group, is an important final stage of changes and improvements.

Main body

At the final stage of implementing solutions, it is necessary to determine what needs to be adjusted. The list of solutions for the Lego Group includes, among others, updating the qualification requirements for employees, organization of performance assessment, training, and measurement of employee motivation. These decisions can be adjusted by regulating the actions of performers and transferring the efforts of subordinates in the right direction. Adjustments are required when actual results begin to deviate from those expected (Coulson-Thomas, 2016). The manager has to monitor the dynamics of deviations of the actual results of the company’s activities from the planned ones. This will allow the Lego Group to confirm the correctness of the provided solutions.

Reassessment helps managers to more fully and accurately imagine the remaining way to achieve the goal of increasing performance level. Thus, the correction of the decision continues the process of forming its content, which is expressed in the introduced refinements and amendments. At a certain stage, decisions may be made to eliminate some positions in case part of the responsibilities can be transferred to other employees (Ivanisevic et al., 2016). Reasonable correction of the solution does not change its content since the goal is the same and the means used to achieve it remain. Such adjustment can continue until the moment the decision is fully implemented, and a desired level of performance is achieved.

Conclusion

As a result, based on the analysis of the actual work of the employees, it is possible to make adjustments in the business schemes and change their structure. The last stage plays the role of feedback and ensures the continuity of the process of preparing and making solutions to the management problems of the Lego Group. Reassessment also allows the company to improve the procedures for its adoption based on the accumulated experience.

References

Coulson-Thomas, C. (2016). Leadership, innovation and business growth. Management Services, 60(2), 36-43.

Ivanisevic, A., Katic, I., Buchmeister, B., & Leber, M. (2016). Business plan feedback for cost effective business processes. Advances in Production Engineering & Management, 11(3), 173-182.