“The amount of Lego people (Minifigures) now outnumber humans.”
#fact1
“The year 2016 alone saw a jaw-dropping sale totaling 7.5 billion bricks.’
#fact2
“Lego was close to filing for bankruptcy in 2015.”
#fact3
Yes, you read that last part right. How is it possible for an old-fashioned, timeless blocks of joy that has been around since the 1950s survived through during the age of smartphones and augmented reality video games?
Innovation.
With little improvements or modification to its portfolio for over a decade, Lego was seen as a dying brand in the age of technology. Although the brand did put immense efforts in order to stay relevant, from introducing jewelry for girls, Lego clothes, to opening theme parks that resulted in a loss of £25m for the first year, they were desperately out of their wits.
Source: Financial Times
In came Vig Knudstorp, who was said to be the savior during its darkest hours; he performed so well that he was promoted to #theboss only after 3 years of service with the company. He took one good look at the current condition and threw out assets (in their case, liabilities) that the company had no expertise in managing i.e theme parks. He then proceeded to restructure the age-old methods by encouraging communication between the designers and the fanboys that resulted in Lego launching a crowd-sourcing competition whereby the winner with the best design get 1% of the product’s net sales. It went crazy from there on! The campaign proved to be a resounding success that leads to amazing designs, from Back To The Future DeLorean Time Machine, The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and a set of female NASA scientists.
Source: San Antonio Plastic Bricks
Under the new found direction, the brand placed additional emphasis to its prime demographic – children. Millions of dollars were channeled into market researches and global studies in order to observe the patterns in constructing Lego figures. Additionally, The Lego Movie came out in 2014 and sales were given a humongous boost, along with The Lego Batman (2017) movie that outperformed the actual Batman movie from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Source: Tumblr
With such an impressive turnaround within a short period of time, needless to say we’re all very excited to see what Lego has up on its sleeves for the years to come.
