LEGO: Success Made Simple

LEGO logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

LEGO, the popular toy company based out of Denmark, has been a staple to millions of people’s childhoods since its inception in the mid 20^th century. In 2003, however, the world’s top 5 toy producer was in a lot of financial trouble. Some blamed it on the fact that they were stretching their means to far to video game development and amusement park constructions, but the key issue was their supply chain management. Once it was made clear that this was the issue that was driving LEGO’s poor financial engine, they set out to fix this broken system, all while using the sales of their video games to push the company out of it’s difficult economic state.

 

Since then LEGO has experienced great success. From 2009-2011 LEGO increased its market share from 4.8% to 5.9% of the global toy market, making it the world’s fourth largest toy manufacturer. With profit numbers like $1 billion of product sold in the US alone and a net increase of profit around 69%, the question now has become what has made the recover of LEGO so successful while other toy companies are still struggling?

 

Well, after reading articles like the Economist’s “Bricks and Flicks” it is clear to me that the video game division of LEGO has been driving profits and increasing the enjoyment of the consumers. Over the past decade LEGO has developed a number of co-branded products with other companies like Lucas Films, Disney, and DC Comics. Through these licensing arrangements LEGO has created it’s classic toy building products along with video games like “Star Wars LEGO”. By doing this LEGO has given its customers the ability to enjoy their products in both the real and virtual worlds, which increases the overall value of the product and experiences as a whole.

 

What really has made the difference though, was the chosen time for each of the products release. Last years “LEGO Batman 2” was released just after the box office hit “The Dark Knight Rises” and after 2012 was wrapped up, it was #9 on the top 10 selling games of that year. With simple gameplay and family friendly story telling the video games in the LEGO world have caught the attention of almost every one in the industry. The game designs are built in a world entirely built by LEGOs with characters designed straight from the LEGO character roster available to consumers in the classic LEGO plastic forms. With all of these designs out there it has made the game easier to make given that concrete designs are already available to the developers. With all this design time taken care of, LEGO has had more time to focus on story lines and puzzles that keep every new LEGO game more enjoyable than the previous one.

 

With the summer of 2013 slowly creeping in we can expect another line up of big movies at the box office and once again we can expect LEGO to plan ahead for their summer release of  “LEGO Marvel Super Heroes”. Having had experience with the DC Comic Universe, LEGO now will be testing the waters with the other comic book giant, Marvel Comics. This summer Marvel will be releasing a new Wolverine installment, Iron Man 3, and Thor 2: Dark World, and what do you know all the Marvel characters in these movies will be playable characters in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes!!! As we can now see LEGO has set out on its mission once again to expand the consumers experience with the characters we have grown to love. Expanding on the experience we get from watching our favorite characters at the box office to enjoying the family friendly toy products and giving consumers the ability to play as these character in a familiar virtual world, LEGO has set out to broaden the experience for consumers, all while increasing the value of their brand and generating positive financials.

 

I leave you now with a video of how the LEGO development team addresses the issue of doing justice to the Marvel brand and how they create a new LEGO video game that expands the user experience from previous LEGO titles. Enjoy!