“"Since its near-insolvency in 2003, Lego has transformed itself into an innovation machine. The majority of its revenue still comes from refining classic Lego lines such as City and Star Wars, licensing more recent mega-hits such as Lord of the Rings, and inventing themes such as Lego Friends for the girls' toy market. Launched in early 2012, Friends was backed by years of research and a $40 million marketing campaign. That year, the company went on to sell twice as much of the Friends line as originally forecast. Legocontinues to experiment with new offerings. Through its partnership with Chicago architect Adam Reed Tucker, it developed its Architecture line -- eproductions of iconic buildings rendered in Lego. The iPhone game Life of George, introduced in 2011, is a mash-up of digital and physical Lego play.
Then there is Cuusoo, just one of the company's many adventures in crowdsourcing ideas. Launched in Japan in 2008 and globally in April 2011, Cuusoo invites users to submit -- and vote for -- ideas for new Lego sets. If a design wins 10,000 votes, Lego reviews it for possible production; if the design is developed and launched, its creators get a one per cent cut of the product's total net sales. In 2011, a Cuusoo concept for a Legoset based on online game Minecraft racked up 10,000 votes in just 48 hours, an outpouring of support that compelled Lego to announce that it would produce the set. Six months later (one-third of the usual development time), Lego Minecraft Micro World hit the market. With Cuusoo, Lego moved from tapping the wisdom of a few elite cliques to sourcing the talents of massive crowds.”
Wired UK (sub required)
BTW – at Oracle OpenWorld Lego had a very nice segment on social conversations with customers.
Below: Photo of 23 metres high boxes of Lego bricks in one of four storage rooms, holding around a billion bricks in total. Robotic cranes fetch decoration or packaging parts.
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