subject: Lego Proves Its Longevity [print this page] Any time you look through any childs toy chest you can discover items of Lego. The multi coloured bricks have preserved there worldwide popularity since there creation 50 plus years ago. In 2000 Lego gained an esteemed honour Toy of the Century by Fortune Magazine as well as by the British Toy Retailers Association. It beat Action Man, Action Man and other popular toys.
The Lego groups roots began in 1932 when Ole Kirk Christiansen started producing toys out of timber for boys and girls. It took until 1958 for the Lego brick as we know it today to be invented. The bright coloured bricks were simple and hard-wearing; therefore they were perfect for young children to spend time playing with. The plastic-made brick may be joined together to make a wall along with other shapes which kids can easily build or disassemble. Over many years the design and style has hardly altered and todays bricks can still be interlocked using the bricks produced in 1958.
Why Lego has really become very popular is primarily because that Lego can be built into a great many shapes and sizes that the only restriction is the extent of a childs creativeness. The bricks are so variable that Lego has determined that six, eight-stud bricks may be arranged in 915,103,763 alternative ways.
Lego bricks today are created within the companys main factory in Denmark. The bricks are designed so exactly that the organization claims for every million bricks produced only 18 are flawed and removed.
After the basic bricks were produced, Christiansens son and heir to the Lego group formulated Lego Duplo in the early 1960s for smaller children. This made it easier for younger children to handle the bricks simply because they were much larger.
The other big jump in creation for Lego was the Lego figure in 1974. The small-scale yellow coloured figures gave youngsters a different way of playing with Lego. They could now move and relate with the Lego toy. Since 1974 billions of Lego figures have been manufactured including Disney World Characters to Lego clocks.
Lego could appear outdated by present day high-tech toy characters, but it continues to thrive by working with todays in demand themes. One example is in 2004 Lego unveiled Lego factory where you can design and build their own Lego model and have it dispatched to their home.
Lego also joined forces with Lucas Arts to get a publishing deal for video gaming that has given the company a new lease of life. For instance Lego Star Wars 2 sold 1.1 million units in its first full week of release.
However it has not all been a success story. In the early 2000s Lego was fighting to make a bearing within the toy market it used to own. The difficulties started in the late 1990s once the company stopped cantering on design. There figures didnt need much constructing techniques or hardly any imagination. Also they were very similar to other toy manufacturers.
Worse still Lego created a childrens Television series, an industry they knew little or no about. The Television show was predictable and in essence a sales pitch. It only lasted two seasons on fox network and when the show ended sales figures slumped.
With the corporation wanting to break into new markets and create new playthings the expense of components went through the roof.
The real issue was the new designs just weren't very popular with the kids. The Lego city line, once probably one of their best businesses lines had dropped to merely 3 % of the companys total revenue.
In 2005 Lego had begun to get there product right again. There designers were still designing but they had constraints. Products were only produced following a no-nonsense voting procedure and designers were advised to cooperate with non creative employees. Managers would now advice the designers about what research data was identifying. Designers were also told to work with manufactures to advice on exactly how the expense of design would influence profitability.
By 2008 the City Line had regained the top spot in the Lego portfolio claiming 20% of the business sales. The toy characters went back to basic principles and toy cars for example fire engines now appeared like fire engines instead of spaceships.
