Opening a Lego set can really feel equal components overwhelming and thrilling. With quite a few bricks and tiny particulars laced into every factor present in a field, the eagerness to construct brick castles, rocket ships, metropolis skylines, and extra has attracted children in droves for 92 years.
Few corporations have been capable of replicate Lego’s success so far. Its toys span generations, from grownup hobbyists reconnecting with their favourite toys to the following era.
Since its humble beginnings in 1932 as not more than a carpenter’s ardour mission, Lego toys have grow to be an indispensable a part of childhood. Title the subject, and there’s possible a set for it, whether or not structure, anime, racing, or jazz music.
Over the many years, Lego may very properly have been changed by extra addictive and interesting digital devices. However that wasn’t the case—if something, issues couldn’t have been higher for the family-owned Danish firm. It reported document ends in 2024, with a 12% gross sales progress towards the toy market’s 1% decline.
What, then, is Lego’s secret sauce to maintain children (and, extra lately, adults) hooked to its colourful bricks?
Fortune takes an unique look behind the scenes of Lego’s product growth and the key to retaining the enduring model related.
One among Lego’s long-standing themes—house—illustrates what makes its strategy distinctive and helps it stand the take a look at of time. Area was one of many firm’s three official classes inside which it developed toys (“fort” and “metropolis” have been the others) courting again to the Nineteen Seventies. It was meant to characterize the mysteries of the longer term, very like castles did for the previous. Area’s reputation with children has endured via the years because it has captured children’ imaginations as a realm of limitless alternatives.
“Lego-building is a ardour in its personal proper,” Julia Goldin, Lego’s chief product and advertising officer, advised Fortune in an interview final yr.
Listening to children, for youths
Lego realized early on that there was no proxy to understanding what children need with out listening to from them immediately. Goldin stated the corporate made this deliberate resolution about 10 years in the past, and it’s helped the corporate change the way it pursued toy-making.
“What makes a Lego set distinctive is, firstly, actually understanding the viewers,” Goldin. “Not simply understanding what will likely be of curiosity for them, however what are the fitting dynamics of the expertise.”
The standard of Lego’s bricks is one other issue that units it aside, as units can get handed from one era to the following, in response to Frédérique Tutt, world toy business advisor at market analysis agency Circana. In contrast to senseless video games, dad and mom suppose their children may achieve one thing good from Lego toys, whether or not that’s engineering talents or utilizing their creativity.
“When dad and mom purchase Lego for his or her little one, they suppose it’s going to assist them construct their mind,” Tutt advised Fortune. “They [Lego] attempt to develop merchandise for anybody and everybody.”
Turning an concept into actuality
As a long-time toy maker, Lego has developed a well-oiled machine to assist it always generate new concepts. The corporate does a “enhance week” every year—consider it like a speedy brainstorming session usually related to startups that spur new ideas. Designers provide you with recent concepts or work on current ones, giving them inventive freedom exterior their day-to-day schedules. There isn’t a guidelines of what must be achieved, though the purpose is to see what might be become a possible Lego set, stated Daniel Meehan, one of many brick firm’s inventive leads.
The following step is to determine how “decodable” the fashions are, together with discovering components that inform tales and make them simpler to play with, like Lego astronauts or purple collectible crystals.
Along with milking concepts from the corporate’s designated toy builders, the corporate hears immediately from its viewers.
“We play-test stuff as properly with children extensively,” Meehan stated.
The corporate brings children collectively the world over, from Germany to China, to see what they need extra of. That course of yielded one of many essential components we see in Lego’s space-themed units right now, stated Meehan, who’s spearheading the corporate’s latest house marketing campaign.
Throughout one in all its house “DIY assessments,” one of many children was flying round a automobile with wheels, amassing aliens alongside the best way—each of which weren’t a part of the preliminary set’s design.
“We’re very sensible, we’re adults … however within the eyes of children, it was an ideal house flying automobile. However there was one grievance: he [the kid] stated we want extra aliens. And we really did put extra aliens within the field because of that one child,” Meehan stated.
The addition of aliens to Lego units, comparable to in a Lego house station, provides extra layers to what would in any other case be a simple set and in addition marks a standard thread that ties units from different classes collectively. As an illustration, Lego aliens can be discovered within the house science lab and rover units. The little inexperienced creatures have been intentionally designed to look alike as a cue to Lego builders, Meehan tells Fortune.
Lego’s high quality and complexity can make its merchandise costly—typically pricier than the most recent iPhone. That’s very true of merchandise pulled out of the market, making them uncommon. The novelty of its merchandise has made them a collector’s dream and even the article of $100,000 heists within the U.S. The corporate says it affords units throughout totally different value factors so nobody feels priced out. Its most simplified merchandise can value single-digit {dollars}, simply as its 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon set may value about $960.
For the love of element
To make sure, Lego’s look after high quality and element isn’t a brand new phenomenon. The corporate’s founder, Ole Kirk Kristiansen, imbibed it strictly to his son, who as soon as tried utilizing two as an alternative of three coats of paint to hasten an order and was reprimanded.
The corporate’s penchant for element applies not simply to its house creations or toy growth course of but in addition to its enterprise. Goldin, as an illustration, straddles conferences that have a look at the corporate’s current efficiency whereas additionally discussing the pipeline for the following few years.
A lot of the Danish firm’s legacy as a toy maker is linked to the way it makes play accessible throughout age teams, pursuits, and expertise ranges. The theme of house, Meehan explains, might be aimed toward three kinds of audiences: storytellers, who’re principally children with a fascination for the topic; lovers, who’ve an curiosity in studying concerning the area; and others, who’re usually drawn to all issues house, together with its creative facet.
“One other power they’ve is that they attraction to the younger youngsters in addition to the youngsters or adults with intricate items. So, they develop with you,” Tutt stated.
The granular strategy additionally applies to how Lego costs merchandise and designs, and markets units for its up-and-coming grownup fanbase, making certain there’s a toy for everybody. However one factor is certain: no matter the motivations, the corporate tries to not dial down on particulars as a result of that provides Lego toys their character.
Goldin says Lego followers “actually discover” the little components it provides, as they “convey numerous pleasure.”
“It is way more than a toy as a result of it is a very immersive expertise,” she stated.
A model of this story was initially revealed on Fortune.com on Aug. 25, 2024.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
