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Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

joshsummers.co.uk

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Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#61

Post by olavk »

hpaavola wrote: post #3

Back when we were kids there was only one type of Lego, the type that was meant for everybody. Now they have their own line for girls, Lego Friends. And Lego Friends is just stupid http://seasonaldepressioncomic.com/2014/12/06/lego-friends/

Maybe classic Lego was meant for everyone, but actually it has always been far more popular among boys. While the old sets may seem gender neutral on the surface, the appealed much more to boys than girls. Lego have made many misguided attempts to sell to girls, but the recent "Friends"-line is the first time Lego have succeed in capturing a significant market of girls.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#62

Post by robbiep »

Jgrubb wrote: post #60
robbiep wrote: post #56

Lego. The toy of my childhood. My brother, sister and myself are the youngest of our cousins, and ended up inheriting all their Lego. We had a whole verandah (grew up in Australia in the country) filled with our Lego city. It became all encompassing. We had no close neighbors(nearest was 6 km away) and no console until the n64 was old so it was Lego or helping Dad on the farm. We had the most detailed alternate reali…

No, Lego still does. Mine just discovered them this past Christmas. They'll build them 5 times in a row and then trade with each other so they can build a new one. I tell ya, as much as I remember loving Legos when I was a kid, there is absolutely nothing as cool as building them with your own kids. Also, they still sell those big boxes of random pieces. I think it's called the "Classic" line or something like that.

That's awesome to know. Still a while away for me but it's on the 'looking forward to' list!

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#63

Post by Jgrubb »

eloisant wrote: post #19
laurent123456 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the two boxes on the poster, they don't look that "universal" - it's a truck and the other one a house. Today's boxes I guess are just better categorized, but not that different.

These boxes only have standard pieces, which is why the truck and house look boxy. Today's boxes include too many specific pieces. Car hood, top, helicopter nose, etc. Pieces that can't be used for anything else that what they're designed for, and can't be replaced if lost. So you can't take it appart to build something different.

Trust me, a kid the age of the one in the ad can take it apart and make something different. Mine do it nonstop.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#64

Post by duncanawoods »

corin_ wrote: post #50
duncanawoods wrote: post #46

recent studies have proven that praising a child’s effort over the childs acheivements is the correct way to raise a little person that will do well I think this claim is mistaken. The article backs the claim up with a link which discusses something different: whether to praise effort or praise attributes of the person e.g. "you are so smart!". Praising achievement is a third category of praise where consequences are…

I don't have sources but I'm sure I've read studies against praising achievement. I'm sure if combined well with praising effort it can work well, but it should be a way of helping judge effort, not praised for and of itself. For example if a child constantly gets Bs in a certain subject then getting an A can be an indicator that they've put more effort in - but the A itself shouldn't be the reason for the praise.

Yep, effort\achievement shouldn't be considered as independent. What I do think is important is to kill dead this notion that achievement is not a necessary consideration for how to praise. For example:

I would be cautious about praising:

i) High effort but low performance due to repeating mistakes that have been pointed out before.

ii) Low effort but high performance due to luck or the task being easy for the individual.

I would find it important to praise:

i) Low effort but improved performance due to a change in behaviour e.g. learning from previous experience.

ii) High effort but low performance due to how novel or ambitiously challenging the task is for the individual.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#65

Post by DanBC »

ps4fanboy wrote: post #8
hpaavola wrote: post #3

Back when we were kids there was only one type of Lego, the type that was meant for everybody. Now they have their own line for girls, Lego Friends. And Lego Friends is just stupid http://seasonaldepressioncomic.com/2014/12/06/lego-friends/

What comes first, the desire for gendered products or the gendered products?

We know that a lot of social psychology research is weak or wrong, and that a few mainstream researchers hold anti-science viewpoints. http://wjh.harvard.edu/~jmitchel/writing/failed_science.htm

We know that toy manufacturers spend a lot of money on research.

So, it's possible that they have a bunch of gently flawed research, and the flaws are magnified through poor reporting, poor understanding, and then implementation into product.

And now we're here, with toyshops segregrated into pink aisles and blue aisles there's no way back.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#66

Post by blfr »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #36
ps4fanboy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What comes first, the desire for gendered products or the gendered products?

The former is a generalisation, a trend that every right-minded thinker accepts. Deriving the latter from that, unfortunately, leads to a restriction. Witness the beauty of the free market which caters to the mass-appeal middle of the road, ignoring the beautiful anomalies at the edges.

There are plenty of niche products on the market, from microbrews to eco-friendly dog accessories, whole specialty stores. Even more so now that you can order online.

And you can have things custom made. For items like suits or furniture it's not that much more expensive than quality pre-made lines.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#67

Post by Jgrubb »

johntaitorg wrote: post #38

Lego is now only a 3D jigsaw puzzle, sadly. Lego Classic has just arrived in the UK but it seems a half-hearted piece of mummery to me.

I don't mean this as a slight, but to a kid there's absolutely nothing lacking from the modern kits. I'd say that the "half-hearted" part is solely in your perspective now as an adult.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#68

Post by DanBC »

corin_ wrote: post #53
DanBC wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A child-made toy gun is not a gendered toy. A gendered toy would be a toy gun packaged in a blue box with only images of boys on the packaging.

What makes blue more boy-specific than guns are, objectively? For whatever reasons, whether through child instincts or society, both are generally preferred by boys over girls.

The pictures of only boys on the blue boxes and the pictures of only girls on the pink boxes is something that needs to be considered.

I don't care if more boys buy guns and more girls buy toy horses. I do care if those toys are packaged in rigidly gendered packaging and stocked in gendered sections of the toy store.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#69

Post by icebraining »

DanBC wrote: post #59
icebraining wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, high-fructose corn syrup has become a major ingredient of many American food products within the past 20+ years. That didn't happen because of consumer demand, and consumers don't have an easy way to vote against it. That's a pretty bad example, since that was in good part a result of the action of elected governments that have kept the price of sugar way above the market price, through tariffs, quotas a…

Don't the scare quote you chose to use around democracy make you think that actually HFCS is a good example and that everyday people actually have very little power to change the way sugar and HFCS is regulated?

I think it's a bad example of a result of the type of factors that pavlov listed (supply chain, internal politics, competitor envy, random advice from consultants, need to meet quarterly growth goals, etc).

Legal restrictions in the marketplace are categorically different from internal company policies, and the lack of power that people have changing the former does not imply a lack of power changing or overriding the latter.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#70

Post by Jgrubb »

robbiep wrote: post #62
Jgrubb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Lego still does. Mine just discovered them this past Christmas. They'll build them 5 times in a row and then trade with each other so they can build a new one. I tell ya, as much as I remember loving Legos when I was a kid, there is absolutely nothing as cool as building them with your own kids. Also, they still sell those big boxes of random pieces. I think it's called the "Classic" line or something like that.

That's awesome to know. Still a while away for me but it's on the 'looking forward to' list!

It's pretty great, my house is occasionally quiet for the first time in years because they're all at the table building something. It's also pretty evident (to me) in this thread that the folks who are moaning about how Legos suck now probably are not the ones with kids.
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