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Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

joshsummers.co.uk

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Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#121

Post by wvenable »

PJDK wrote: post #75
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 hear this a lot. Was I the only kid who would build what ever was on the box first, play with that for a day - break it and then have it all go into a big box? And all the funny bits people moan about make excellent space lasers.

As a kid, I always found the big box of bricks boring. The sets had all the cool pieces (and still do) and, like you, I'd build what's on the box initially but not long after those pieces just went into the pile to build other cool things.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#122

Post by jbattle »

DanBC wrote: post #86
Jgrubb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a kid. Lego Friends sucks. The gendering of Lego sucks. The relentless specialist themed sets sucks. The move towards many small fiddly pieces and some specialist pieces to create a Lego-thing sort of sucks. Luckily I can ignore all of that and buy Lego Creative or Lego Classic. http://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-10681-Creative-Building-Cube/dp... http://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-Classic-10698-Large-Creative/dp...

Some of the branded kits are better than others. The lego star wars kits give you very reusable pieces. The kits that focus on characters + backgrounds/buildings seem to be the worst in terms of useless pieces

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#123

Post by olavk »

kbart wrote: post #109
olavk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn't do statistics, but at least I was fighting with my sister on who gets more Lego bricks to play with.

I'm not suggesting no girl ever liked Lego, I thought that would go without saying. But the discrepancy was very significant. Consistently something like 80% of Lego sets were purchased for boys, if I remember correctly.

Of course that meant that there was a large untapped market of girls, and Lego have tried various approaches (mostly failures) to get at better hold in that market.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#124

Post by mxfh »

For a historical perspective, LEGO's gender policy in advertising and product development seemed to swing around every 5 Years or so in the 70s.

http://thinkingbrickly.blogspot.de/2012/01/lego-gender-gap.h...

Compare this to the still great and gender encompassingly written, but still clearly gendered approch from '74 to introduce the homemaker line:

http://helpemptymyattic.co.uk/vintage-lego-little-girls-thin...

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemPic.asp?C=c74ukhom

funnily enough the now internet famous introductory text was always cited out of it's context:

http://io9.com/these-lego-instructions-from-1974-are-awesome...

There was another version other of the same year clearly aimed at boys (sorry only dutch version here). [1] Correction, its actually quite generic and very inclusive/neutral compared to the 1976 UK version [2]

[1a] http://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?q=97875

[1b] http://worldbricks.com/fr/my-instructions/download/file.html... [pdf]

[2]http://worldbricks.com/en/my-instructions/download/file.html... [pdf]

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#125

Post by JoeAltmaier »

mxfh wrote: post #124

For a historical perspective, LEGO's gender policy in advertising and product development seemed to swing around every 5 Years or so in the 70s. http://thinkingbrickly.blogspot.de/2012/01/lego-gender-gap.h... Compare this to the still great and gender encompassingly written, but still clearly gendered approch from '74 to introduce the homemaker line: http://helpemptymyattic.co.uk/vintage-lego-little-girls-thin... htt…

Sorry don't read Dutch but the pictures aren't 'aimed at boys' in any way at all. Unless you're projecting your own prejudices - trains and trucks are only for boys? Explain!

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#126

Post by lione »

icebraining wrote: post #105
facepalm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think? Maybe they would hire you as a marketing consultant, because they probably never got round to thinking about that kind of thing. Not sure if "marketing" is even a thing in socialist countries like Denmark.

Denmark is not a socialist country, and they certainly have marketers, especially in multinational companies like Lego. In fact, their current CMO held the same position at Revlon before joining them.

I think this is the point where someone is supposed to say whoosh. The person above was being sarcastic.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#127

Post by mxfh »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #125
mxfh wrote: post #124

For a historical perspective, LEGO's gender policy in advertising and product development seemed to swing around every 5 Years or so in the 70s. http://thinkingbrickly.blogspot.de/2012/01/lego-gender-gap.h... Compare this to the still great and gender encompassingly written, but still clearly gendered approch from '74 to introduce the homemaker line: http://helpemptymyattic.co.uk/vintage-lego-little-girls-thin... htt…

Sorry don't read Dutch but the pictures aren't 'aimed at boys' in any way at all. Unless you're projecting your own prejudices - trains and trucks are only for boys? Explain!

Sorry messed that up, you're right that the '74 builder catalog was very inclusive/generic but somehow the '76 one overshadowed this already in my memory (similiar models, strictly for lads).

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?C=c76uk

http://worldbricks.com/en/my-instructions/download/file.html... [PDF]

Yet the '74 homemaker one is clearly aimed at girls, and only mentions boys in the foreword. http://helpemptymyattic.co.uk/vintage-lego-little-girls-thin...

My point is LEGO had quite the on/off approach with gender in their advertising for decades already, and yes I like the 1981 one.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#128

Post by lione »

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.

"Lego sets are so uncreative nowadays, I buy a set and then only build what was intended. I'm obviously not the problem." Seriously, those sets and the cool pieces just add many more dimensions to what you can creatively build.

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#129

Post by olavk »

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…

You can still get generic sets of bricks as you have always been able to. It has been rebranded as the "Classic" line: http://www.lego.com/en-gb/classic/products?ignorereferer=tru...

Re: Lego’s 1981 Ad Campaign

#130

Post by icebraining »

lione wrote: post #126
icebraining wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark is not a socialist country, and they certainly have marketers, especially in multinational companies like Lego. In fact, their current CMO held the same position at Revlon before joining them.

I think this is the point where someone is supposed to say whoosh. The person above was being sarcastic.

I considered that option, but the comment history pushed me in the other direction. I plead Poe's law.
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