Opening a Lego set can really feel equal elements overwhelming and thrilling. With quite a few bricks and tiny particulars laced into every ingredient 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 in a position to 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. Identify the subject, and there’s doubtless a set for it, whether or not structure, anime, racing, or jazz music.
Over the a long time, Lego might very effectively 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 report leads to 2024, with a 12% gross sales development in opposition to the toy market’s 1% decline.
What, then, is Lego’s secret sauce to maintain children (and, extra just lately, adults) hooked to its colourful bricks?
Fortune takes an unique look behind the scenes of Lego’s product improvement and the key to protecting the long-lasting model related.
One among Lego’s long-standing themes—area—illustrates what makes its strategy distinctive and helps it stand the check of time. Area was one of many firm’s three official classes inside which it developed toys (“castle” and “city” have been the others) relationship 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 passion in its own right,” Julia Goldin, Lego’s chief product and advertising and marketing 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 straight. Goldin mentioned 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 unique is, first and foremost, really understanding the audience,” Goldin. “Not just understanding what will be of interest for them, but what are the right dynamics of the experience.”
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, based on Frédérique Tutt, world toy trade advisor at market analysis agency Circana. In contrast to senseless video games, dad and mom suppose their children might achieve one thing good from Lego toys, whether or not that’s engineering talents or utilizing their creativity.
“When parents buy Lego for their child, they think it’s going to help them build their brain,” Tutt advised Fortune. “They [Lego] try to develop products for anyone and everyone.”
Turning an concept into actuality
As a long-time toy maker, Lego has developed a well-oiled machine to assist it continually generate new concepts. The corporate does a “boost week” every year—consider it like a speedy brainstorming session sometimes related to startups that spur new ideas. Designers provide you with contemporary concepts or work on present ones, giving them artistic freedom exterior their day-to-day schedules. There isn’t a guidelines of what must be achieved, though the purpose is to see what will be became a possible Lego set, mentioned Daniel Meehan, one of many brick firm’s artistic leads.
The subsequent step is to determine how “decodable” the fashions are, together with discovering parts 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 straight from its viewers.
“We play-test stuff as well with kids extensively,” Meehan mentioned.
The corporate brings children collectively internationally, from Germany to China, to see what they need extra of. That course of yielded one of many essential parts we see in Lego’s space-themed units as we speak, mentioned Meehan, who’s spearheading the corporate’s current area marketing campaign.
Throughout considered one of its area “DIY tests,” one of many children was flying round a car with wheels, gathering aliens alongside the best way—each of which weren’t a part of the preliminary set’s design.
“We’re very practical, we’re adults … but in the eyes of kids, it was a perfect space flying vehicle. But there was one complaint: he [the kid] said we need more aliens. And we actually did put more aliens in the box as a result of that one kid,” Meehan mentioned.
The addition of aliens to Lego units, akin to in a Lego area station, provides extra layers to what would in any other case be an easy set and likewise marks a standard thread that ties units from different classes collectively. As an example, Lego aliens may also be discovered within the area 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 provides units throughout totally different value factors so nobody feels priced out. Its most simplified merchandise can price single-digit {dollars}, simply as its 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon set might price 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 area creations or toy improvement course of but additionally to its enterprise. Goldin, for example, straddles conferences that take 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 area, Meehan explains, will be geared toward three varieties of audiences: storytellers, who’re largely children with a fascination for the topic; fanatics, who’ve an curiosity in studying in regards to the subject; and others, who’re usually drawn to all issues area, together with its creative facet.
“Another strength they have is they appeal to the young children as well as the teenagers or adults with intricate pieces. So, they grow with you,” Tutt mentioned.
The granular strategy additionally applies to how Lego costs merchandise and designs, and markets units for its up-and-coming grownup fanbase, guaranteeing 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 offers Lego toys their character.
Goldin says Lego followers “really notice” the little parts it provides, as they “carry loads of pleasure.”
“It’s much more than a toy because it’s a very immersive experience,” she mentioned.
A model of this story was initially printed on Fortune.com on Aug. 25, 2024.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
