1) Brief introduction on the company.

Introduction
LEGO Group (Lego) which is a Denmark based toy manufacturing company, was declared as
the world’s most powerful brand in the year 2015 by Brand Finance. It was able to create a
unique brand identity because of its high quality products and services and accountability
toward consumers. By focusing on innovative technological developments around the brand it
was a able to disrupted the global toy manufacturing industry as a distinct player. Lego has
been constantly changing it strategy through product diversification, portfolio extension, and
strategic partnerships and in this way it was able to cope with the growing demand of
consumers around the world.

Background
Lego group was a family owned private company that was form in 1932 in Billund, Denmark.
It was founded by a Danish carpenter by the name of Kirk Christiansen. Lego is derived from
the Danish word “leg godt”, meaning “play well.” Lego become both name and the idea behind
the company. Initially it started with a vision of ‘Inventing the future of play’. Lego aims to
promote learning and development in children through play, after they realize that for a child
playing was ‘nutrition for the soul.’ To inspires children’s interest to use Lego toys it
encouraged imagination, invention, and creativity in children. In 1958, the company had
decided to patent the unique plastic stud-and-tube coupling system that permitted two blocks
to be joined in 24 different ways and subsequently the Lego brick became a very popular toy
brand amongst children world wide
2) Product and Brand:
Lego Products
Space
Police
Trains
Town
Great Vehicles
Lego City Artic Expediton
Mountain Police

Lego manufactures various kind of products that has 7 categories which are listed
above.

Thus these are the some of the products that are being manufactured and offered by
Lego to its customers they has only one brand name Lego. No other Brand is associated
or it has no other house of brands.
Source: file:///C:/Users/Hp/Downloads/LEGO-Company-Profile-A-short-presentation-high.pdf
3) Brand Creation & Evolution
Through three generations of the Christiansen family the development of the LEGO brand had
been undertaken. It was in 2004 that they handed over charge to a former management
consultant of Mckinsey with an aim to manage the company as the CEO and to get it back on
track. The brand development strategy of LEGO was closely linked to it background, its
development and societal and marketing trends.

During the period of 1932-1964 the brand followed a product-oriented strategy whereby it
introduced line extensions within the existing product category with a focus in developing new
construction themes and ideas to earn the loyalty of children, who were prime consumer
segment of LEGO.

In 1965, LEGO’s brand strategy focused on children and it also went to explore products for
customers in different age groups and gender groups. And finally the company then launched
the first sub-brand, LEGO Duplo for younger children, followed by the launch of the more
advanced LEGO Technic for older customer segments

During the year 1930s to 2000s Lego developments were as follows:

 Ole Kristiansen had started making the wooden toys instead of only plastics.
 1934 mark the history in the life event at Lego organisation as it has named “Lego” in
this year.
 In 1949 Lego developed plastic bricks and then later improved its design from the
year 1958.
 1960, It introduced themes and wheels and Non-toxic materials are being used : ABS
 It Introduced its first Lego-based train system and also introduced DUPLO which is a
larger brick system for very small children.
 In 1970s it had shifted to young girls by introducing doll houses and mini-figures.
 In 1980s it had launched the technic series which is mainly focussed on robot based
systems.
 1988 it had its first Lego World Cup and Educational products were also launched.
 During the year 1900-2000s, it had introduced its movie based Lego themes like star
wars, Lord of kings. Etc
 It had also introduced Books, magazines and board games.
4) USP & Brand positioning

USP: Construction toys for Children.

Positioning: It can be made into anything possible.
Target Group: Ages 3-15 of middle or upper class.
Sector: Media and Entertainment.
Segment: Construction and building block toys for children.
Tagline: It’s what you make it.
The brand value of Lego is position as imagination, fun, creativity, learning, care, and quality.
From its inception Lego has always been focusing on developing the brand, that is just more
than simply its familiar logo brand, with the objective of portraying LEGO’s guarantee with
regards to its quality and originality and of achieving the mission to “Inspire and develop
builders of tomorrow.”

Brand Strategy
The Branding strategy of Lego aims at re-establishing its brand portfolio and developing a
sustainable business for the company. The brand reputation that LEGO has been able develop
is attributable to its branding strategy that had evolved over a period of time. Lego was able to
earn a competitive advantage over its competitors because it had a “Balanced Brand Portfolio”
wherein its product line was diversely distributed across different phases.

5) Market Segment:  Geographic Segmentation

 Demographic Segmentation
 Psychographic Segmentation
Geographic Segmentation:
As per the sale is concern it has a major sales in the developed nations in
Western Europe and North America. As currently it is trying to expand it’s based in Asian
market with more emphasis on India and China.
Demographic Segmentation:
Lego Targets to the genders which includes male and female. It also caters to
different the ages but with a special focus on primary ages that is from to 5-12years.
Psychographic Segmentation:
Main focus of Lego is the people who has the following values:
Imagination Creativity Fun Learning Quality Caring
6) IMC strategy adopted for brand building and management:
The main important that makes Lego different from their competitors is that its marketing mix
that is the 4p’s that had worked very well in order to achieved the desired objectives and the
proposes.

Product: As we know that Lego is nowhere without its core product. The products are the
plastics parts, toys, gears. Etc. Thus LEGO had invested in the exclusive releases of Star wars,
Harry potter, Disney..etc so that the kids can able to connect and build.

These became a wide known by others and thus which led to the wide variety of products that
had been associated with a world-renowned brand and has become the biggest player in the
world in its field.

Place: The place here it talks all about the distribution system of the products. As we know
that the headquarters of the company is situated at Denmark and the main offices that are
strategically situated at London, shanghai, Enfield and Singapore.

The distribution system of Lego has in dual mode that is Online as well as Offline distribution
modes. The online distribution occurs through its website and whereas the offline
distribution occurs through its 125 exclusive selling points around the world. Along with it
they also has several multi-brand outlets.

Price: The primary target of Lego is the kid’s ages ranging from 3 to 15 years and whose family
belongs to middle or upper class. And we also know that Lego never compromise on its quality
because of the main reason that the ender user of the product is children. Thus the price of the
product is based on the value strategy that is implementing an average value for the high
quality products.

Promotion: Promotion that is communication towards the end user as good communication
and information attracts the consumer in ultimately buying the products. Thus Lego has also
carried many promotional actions that aim in increasing the brand recognition. The actions are
digital marketing, magazine and store reinforcements. Addition to it LEGO had also done many
other promotions like it participates actively in many events gives exposure. Thus as we know
and see that Lego marketing is highly diversified and it invests solely in the quality and the
value for the customer.
Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/agency/history-lego-marketing

ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION

 It always displays a very simple and very imaginative advertisements but mostly
focussed on the print advertisings. Its advertising is based on the tagline “Just Imagine”
to “Play On”.
7) Brand Equity and Brand Value:
BRAND EQUITY
Brand Logo

The LEGO brand is

Consumer Based Brand Equity synonymous with imagination,
Creativity and innovation.

High quality products made of

Brand Promise ABS Plastics.

We also know that Lego is one of the highest and world most powerful brand and has been
awarded as AAA+ brand rating in the year 2015. It has BSI score of 93.4 (Brand Strength
Index).

Brand Value: Lego is the most valuable toy brand in the world currently. Lego Group as per
the report of 2018 it is worth $7.57 billion which makes it the most valuable toy brand so far
as per the report of consultancy
Brand Finance. The measurement
of its brand value is on the basis
of different factors which includes
the performance of the business,
sales growth. Etc.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/lego-marketing-strategy-made-it-world-
favorite-toy-brand.html
 8) Brand Personality and Brand Association

Brand Personality

Sincerity Excitement Competence Sophistication Ruggedness

Value for Money Middle and

Cool Reliable Strong
Upper Class
Updated Trendy Secure
Strong and
Both Boy
Imaginative Safe Tough
Child Oriented and girl
Challenging Quality

Quality

Fun / Movie
Only for Middle class
and Upper class

Conceptualize
Brand Association
Actions

Creativity

Kids / Children Entartainment

Safety
9) Key Issues and Challenged faced
Despite the positive outcomes and returns that the basics brand strategy of LEGO yielded, Lego
was however confronted with challenges in several phases. As it lost its exclusive rights over
the bricks with the expiration of the LEGO patent in 1989, LEGO faced the challenges of
maintaining the uniqueness of the brand. It faced intense competition when a number of toy
manufacturers who produced plastic bricks similar to LEGO’s. The company also face a
challenge in in keeping its vision alive by creating toys that lived up to the expectations of the
digital world as children were moving fast toward digital platforms.

However despite of the fierce competition, Lego’s Brick by Brick brand strategy was able to
attract over 6.5 million people across the world who appreciated the brand. Lego brand was
able to create a desire among it consumers to find new ways to invent solutions and design
products in a more sustainable manner. As with regard to Lego products in digital world,
Charlotte Simonsen (Simonsen), head of communications of the LEGO Group, said, that the
immediate joy of creation that arise when putting two LEGO bricks together is intuitive and
therefore it can be supplemented, but can never be replaced by electronic experiences.”

Major events in the life of LEGO Brand over the years -

1932 The Lego Group was founded in Billund, Denmark by Ole Kirk Christiansen

1934 The combination and abbreviation of two Danish words, LEG GODT ("play
well"), into LEGO.

1950 Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, son of Ole Kirk Christiansen took over, as his father
steps down from LEGO Group

1955 The "LEGO System of Play" with the first "play and learn" concept was
introduced.

1958 The launching of the unique interlocking LEGO Brick. The brick that were
produced in 1958 are still compatible with the ones being made in 2008

1962 Beginning of experimentation using motors with LEGO elements.

1968 The opening of LEGOLAND park in Billund, Denmark

1969
 The launching of LEGO DUPLOP. The block were created keeping in mind the
small hands of children who is going play with them, each block is much bigger
than its regular LEGO Block counterpart.

1974
Lego added role play and personality with the first introduction of Lego Figures.

1979
Godtfred Kirk Christiansen stepped down as down as CEO and his son, Kjeld Kirk
Cristiansen becomes president and CEO of the LEGO Group.

1986
LEGO TECHNIC Computer Control became one of the first big results of the
partnership with MIT
1994
The LEGO group launch LEGO TECHNIC Supercar, as per the delight of young
customers who are fans of motoring.
LEGO BELVILLE was also launched. It is a product that involves families,
horses, and later princesses, fairies, and butterflies.

1995
LEGO group launch products for children between the age group of 0-2 under the
name LEGO PRIMO
1996
The opening of new LEGOLAND Park in Windsor, Britain
1998
The creation of LEGO MINDSTORMS as a result of partnership between LEGO
Group and MIT. LEGO MINDSTORMS enables the creation and programming
of intelligent Lego models
The creation of the FIRST LEGO league. FIRST stands for - For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and Technology. This is a technology tournament
worldwide in which children’s are encouraged to build their own robots using
LEGO MINDSTORMS to compete with each other.
LEGO Group entered into an agreement with Lucas film Ltd. to create a series of
LEGO sets based on the star war movies.
1999
The opening of new LEGOLAND Park in Carlsbad, California.
2001
LEGO GRUOUP launch BIONICLE, which is a combination of story,
construction toys, and action figures.
2002
The opening of new LEGOLAND Park in Günzburg, Germany
2006
LEGO Group launches LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. This is an updated versions
that allows for the construction and programming of robots in a short period of 30
minutes. The robots now had the capability to see, hear, speak and move.

2008 Minifigures, vehicles and sets based on the Indiana Jones series of movies were
launched
2009 LEGO GROUP introduced a new play theme assortment – Power Miners, pirates
and space police… with an aim to take children's imaginations underground, into
the ocean, and out of this world

2010 LEGO came up with an idea to add a new dimension to family game night by
introducing ten new buildable game. In these new building set, new themes were
introduced which included Hero Factory, Ben 10 Alien Force, Persia Sands of
Time, LEGO Atlantis, and Toy Story 3.

2011 Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building was chosen by LEGO as the latest eye-
catching representative of its LEGO Architecture series, which celebrates the past,
present and future of world architecture. The Burj Khalifa model was the first
model in the Architecture's Landmark series of LEGO to represent a building
outside the USA.

2012 The debut of the LEGO Friends line at Heart lake City, the latest expansion of
LEGOLAND Florida., it was aim to target girls within the age group of 5-8. Lego
Friends line of products revolves around the lives and friendship of five young
girls, Andrea, Emma, Mia, Olivia and Stephanie. These five friends will dance and
sing to emphasize on supportiveness and will also perform the famous song “best
friends forever”.
In April, Lego has named TV presenter and adventurer Ben Fogle as its first
celebrity brand ambassador.

2014 The opening of the LEGO movie in February. This movie became a critical and
commercial hit and it became the second largest February debut of all time.

2015 In June, a 35-meter (114.8 ft.) tower made of more than half a million colourful
LEGO bricks was successfully created by participants in Milan, Italy. It was a new
Guinness World Record.

2016 The LEGO Group started to benefit from digitalization as Consumer’s demand for
digital toys was increasing the sales of programmable LEGO robots and LEGO
bricks packaged with video games. While consumer demand for online
connections resulted in widespread increase in enrolment in LEGO online
communities and a growing number of fan-produced LEGO YouTube videos.

2017

LEGO Group achieve the first rank in the 2017 GLOBAL CSR REPTRAK 100.
2018
On December 12, The Lego Group and Gameloft, a leader in the development and
publishing of mobile games announce a new LEGO game that will bring 40 years
of LEGO minifigure history and universes to mobile.
 Below are historical images of the Lego logo throughout the Brand’s existence.


1934–1936


1936–1946


1946–1948


1948–1950


1950–1953


1953–1954

1954–1959


1959–1964


1964–1972


1972–1998


1998–present
The main Key Issues and challenges faced by LEGO currently is the threat of Substitution and
the counterfeits. As Lego is a high in price and cannot be affordable by everyone thus there are
other options available thus the consumer shift their brand and focus on other cheap available
similar products and also the growing of counterfeits products made of cheap plastics and due
to it the sales of the original Lego products get affected.

10) Suggestions to overcome issues and challenges:

 As per my
suggestion to
overcome the issues
and challenges faced
by Lego are listed
below in bullet
points:

a. The counterfeit
product can be
reduced by using the
technology of RFID
or using the barcode
system to authorize
and know the
genuine of the
products and also by
a giving a unique
packaging that will
be impossible to
imitate.
b. Substitution of the
product can be
minimized by using
the cost cutting of
the product and
deliver the price in a
cheaper rate. The
cost cutting can be
done in the
promotion of the
product, Brand
endorsement and
other IMC’s.

*The suggestion is based on my understanding and thinking for the particular brand.