The Toy Industry Giant - Marketing Strategies of LEGO
The LEGO Group is one of the most reputed brands in the toy industry. The Danish firm was established in 1932, in Billund, Denmark, where they initially made wooden toys that soon became a bestseller. Later in 1949, they launched its best-known plastic brick which became the benchmark of the brand.
Despite how disastrous the COVID-19 pandemic has been for many brands, LEGO’s market grew 14% in the first half of 2020 compared to the previous year, with its operating profit growing by 11% to $622 million.
Much of this success is due to LEGO's excellent marketing strategy, which takes advantage of digitalisation and keen eye towards their client base. By staying genuine to the roots of their brand identity and merging it with state-of-the-art marketing techniques, LEGO has managed to stay ahead of its competition. Let’s take a close look at the strategies LEGO uses to sell their products successfully.
History of the Brand
Lego has been a household name for decades, and continues to boast itself as one of the most formidable brands of all time. What makes LEGO's success spanning across multiple decades notably impressive is that the LEGO brick has maintained a similar design since 1958.
The awards won by LEGO shows both the quality of the product and the effectiveness of LEGO's marketing strategy. As mentioned by Adweek, the key to LEGO's success has been the uniformity in the brand's look and feel, blended with the company's competence to comply just enough to "change with the times and expand its market."
Lego's marketing strategy has maintained its position into the 21st century modifying its voice to match it’s ever changing customer relationship. Throughout LEGO's history, not only have they done a great job generally advertising to their target clients, they have also successfully set up and backed active communities of supporters and followers, and designed engaging pages on its site with games and marketplaces.
Brand Strategies
The growth of the brand is the result of the comprehensive LEGO marketing strategy. At the same time, LEGO notices what marketing strategies are consistently performing from its educational partnerships and parent-safe brand, and how to use this to establish better client relationships.
Social Media and Content Marketing Strategy
While LEGO is already a leading brand, its acceptance on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube emphasises the effectiveness of social media platforms to engage with clients. LEGO’s Facebook page has surpassed 13 million followers as they continue to regularly update the page with pictures and videos of new LEGO launches and innovative creations. Their Instagram page presents similar content and posts which garner hundreds-of-thousands of likes and comments, showcasing their exceptional user engagement.
As of the analysis done in June 2020, LEGO is also YouTube’s most trendy brand channel with 10.04 billion views. Their channel uploads promotional, educational, and how-to videos that advertise the company’s brand. Its acceptance on social media has reassured fans to make their own LEGO fan channels, like “Beyond the Brick,” which help to promote and provide awareness for LEGO’s brand as a separate entity from the company’s marketing efforts.
Integrated Customer Experience
LEGO handles its digital platforms to cater for each segment of its clients with an exclusive customer experience. LEGO Life, a social network application for kids under 13, enables users to share photos of their LEGO creations and allows users to leave comments on the creations of others. The online community has more than 10 million members, offering an impressive way of growing brand awareness by setting up younger users to engage through social platforms.
The company also has a broad adult customer base who can follow its LEGO Ideas online community and thus contribute to the creative process. This community authorises members to share their images of LEGO creations and offer suggestions for new LEGO Ideas sets that users vote on for the company to produce.
Throughout the day-to-day life of an average kid growing up in developed countries of the world, it is parents, teachers, and friends who encourage them to play with LEGO. Through social networks, there is also an astounding amount of user-generated content which helps to steadily validate that this toy is, maybe, one of the most robust, most illuminative, and most useful addictions of a kid's life.
The standards of passive and organic client engagement LEGO has attained are out of this world and definitely a case study for any industry.
Website Redesign
LEGO brought in e2x to redesign their website, including Lego Club, games, galleries, and message boards to the mix. They also established separate microsites applied to different product storylines, like the Lord of the Rings, Super Heroes, Star Wars, etc. Each of these microsites has their own theme, character explanations, online games, films, surveys, quizzes, and product and service links.
If you are looking for a marketing strategy to grow your business or an example that will help you adapt and attain success, LEGO’s is the perfect representation of how scaling back can at times be helpful. Additionally, highlighting how crucial it is to go after international expansion to boost long-term growth.
