Lego - the value of being a specialist | Key4Communications |

Lego plays in another league, as it does not seem that the economic context affects the company at all. The Spanish toy market continues to show uncertainties, despite the contention of the drops in sales. According to the NPD group, 2013 sales have fallen by 1% in the first eight months of the year, showing increases in July and August, and many professionals even expect sales to grow lightly during the Christmas season.

But Lego in Spain has increased its sales by 22% during the same period, "reaching a market share of 5.2 %, which enabled us to reach 4th position number in the manufacturers ranking," as explained by César Ridruejo, country manager of the toy marker in Iberia, who adds that the goal in Spain for the next Christmas season "is to grow in double digits compared to 2012 when we increased sales by 16%." We should also keep in mind that many of its building sets lines were showing sales increases above 50%, also according to NPD data.

Faced with such high expectations, the company has not hesitated to strengthen its marketing and communications plans, "mostly through television campaigns, digital campaigns, more content, and actions to help buyers to make the best choice. The effort will target our classic lines, such as Lego City, Lego Duplo, Lego Friends, and Lego Star Wars, but we will also launch campaigns for this year new products, such as Lego Monster Fighters and Lego Ninja Turtles."

The second toy maker in the world
Lego continues the global growth that has led the company to become the first toy maker in profits ahead of Mattel, and the second in revenue, beating Hasbro and after recording, for example, eight consecutive years of growth in sales in the U.S.

However, "the goal of our company is not to be the biggest but the best for our customers, employees and organization," explains Ridruejo, adding that for this reason Lego is committed to a "continuous dialogue with our customers, which allows us to improve product development through continuous innovation." An example of this dialogue could be Cuusoo, which allows fans of the brand to publish their own designs for playsets.

Back to basics
It was not always all that easy for this company founded by a Danish carpenter in 1934 and currently employing some 10,000 people in 130 countries. In the late nineties, Lego went through a financial crisis that led to losses and that nearly called for bankruptcy in 2004. The company had to close factories and theme parks, as well as lay off 2,000 people, because of an excessively wide and unprofitable offer, including video games, theme parks and non-toy products.

To overcome this situation, Lego focused on its game system, and it addressed its communication actions not only to children but also to parents who had played with the brand as kids and who would now transmit traditional play values to their children.

As Soren Torp Laursen, president of Lego Brands, explained: "We squarely focused on being the best at delivering great construction toy play experiences, and we set aside all of the distractions that prevented us from being able to do so (running our own software publishing division, publishing our own books, developing our own branded non-toy merchandise, managing theme parks). We learned the hard way that we are best suited to stay focused on being a great construction brand, and all of the rest of what it takes to engage children is best left to the experts in those areas.”

Growing thanks to not growing
This means that the secret of Lego success in recent years has been returning to its roots and keeping in mind what is really his specialty. Although it sounds paradoxical, the way to grow was not growing – eliminating the superfluous, pruning, specializing.

Lego -an abbreviation of "leg godt", meaning "play well"- is still owned by the Kirk Kristiansen family and has produced approximately 560,000 million of the interlocking blocks created in 1958. It currently produces 20,000 million bricks a year (2.3 million every hour) at its plants in Denmark and Switzerland, decorating and packaging them in these two factories and also in the United States, South Korea, and the Czech Republic.

Taking into account all blocks that are present in homes worldwide, it is estimated that each person has an average of 70 bricks. And not just at home: even astronauts at the International Space Station have played with Lego.


Other stars of the holiday season:

1. Playmobil and the importance of long term thinking (10/3/2013)
2. Furby gets the pole position for the Christmas season (10/11/2013)
3. 12 licenses for Christmas (10/17/2013)
4. Why tablets for kids are a success (10/24/2013)