LEGO: A 50-Year Old Brand Icon
January 28, 2008 by Susan Gunelius
Filed under Marketing
LEGO turned 50 at 1:58pm today. The iconic brand celebrated a huge milestone today with no signs of weakening anytime soon. The company employs 5,000 people around the world and reports sales nearing $1 1/2 billion.
The LEGO brand represents a good product that, at its core, has changed very little during its 50-year life-span. While the trend today is to tie LEGOs into licensing deals with other big brand names like Harry Potter and Star Wars, the basic LEGO block is still the same, demonstrating how a good product creates the basis for a brand to move to cult status and ultimately a phenomenon. Even Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) joined in the celebration of the iconic brand by transforming its logo on the Google home page into LEGO form.
I think it’s interesting that with toy brands, customer loyalty often spans from one generation to the next. I’m thinking of brands like Barbie and Hot Wheels (and LEGO) that adults remember playing with as children and are happy to buy for their own children. The same concept holds true in some other categories such as food and movies. It would be even more interesting to research that generational transcendency to see if it would be possible to apply it to other categories as well.
What do you think?
Tags: LEGO, LEGO birthday, LEGO 50, brand icon, branding, cult brand, Google, marketing
I have no figures on Lego, but have they ever made it big in girls’ products? My perception is that they never quite cracked that market. Which for a 50-year-old brand would be kind of disappointing. Or is my gut feel wrong?
Good point on the girls market and I can’t recall many of the Lego products targeted towards girls, although I’ve seen that some girls enjoy building with blocks, Legos, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, etc. Maybe they need to offer something like “My Pretty Pony” or a pet shop set or something. I’m not being sexist, but I’ve got a daughter who would show interest in something like this rather than the classic lego bricks.
I wonder if failing to appeal to girls with a product like this means that fewer young women become interested in careers such as engineering?
As a child I enjoyed Legos and wouldn’t dream of changing them, but as a parent I wish they’d round the corners on the pieces because they hurt when you step on them!
BuzzWolf’s point is interesting, but I feel like it’s part of a larger conversation about gender and society — why do boys prefer building toys? Why do they perform better in math? Why are they encouraged to study engineering and science? Some of it’s self-fulfilling prophecies, but it’s also genetic. Boys and girls, like men and women, have different brains. Let’s agree to disagree.
The reason Lego never “went after girls” is probably because they’re doing just fine with the boys. Perhaps the reason they’ve been relevant for 50+ years is because they never tried to dominate every aisle of the toy stores.
Although they did produce those “Town” series for far too long — never got into those, preferred the Castles, Pirates and Space.
Of course Lego have made some efforts – but it just hasn’t got anywhere.
http://alex.woodruff.de/market-development-or-product-development/
And no, I’m not saying this to plug my own business blog – it just strikes me as disappointing for such a big brand – now 50 years old.