Attitude is a psychological variable involved in the purchase decision process that is known to influence Consumer Behavior. These attitudes are “mental positions” or emotional feelings people have about products, services, companies, ideas, issues, or institutions (Armstrong 2018). An attitude can be positive or negative because it is based on people’s values and beliefs, they are hard to change (Solomon, Russell-Bennet & Previte 2019). However, people can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they might at different times express both positive and negative attitudes toward the same object (Solomon, Russell-Bennet & Previte 2019) .

Attitude is a psychological variable involved in the purchase decision process that is known to influence Consumer Behavior. These attitudes are “mental positions” or emotional feelings people have about products, services, companies, ideas, issues, or institutions (Armstrong 2018). An attitude can be positive or negative because it is based on people’s values and beliefs, they are hard to change (Solomon 2019). However, people can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they might at different times express both positive and negative attitudes toward the same object (Solomon 2019).

For strategic decision making that is driven by insight, it is essential for marketers to understand and track consumer attitudes. In the late 90s, Lego’s market share had begun to decline (Milne 2013). Kids seemed kenner to play video games and other toys, and Lego wasn’t cool anymore. So Lego decided to hire more diverse and creative people and fostering open innovation – but executed many of them wrongly. Lego did not talk to their customer, and did not accept ideas for new products, comments or suggestions (O’neill 2010). Rather, they created their product based on what they believed consumers want. In this case of over-innovation and disconnection from customers, the outcome was a string of very expensive failed product launches (O’neill 2010).

The problems of Lego faced was not lack of innovative ideas, but they weren’t creating much value with its product and knowing their consumers were actually grows up in the changing market. We known that Lego has historically been a kid’s toy. However, there is a growing group of adult Lego fans and Lego was not paying attention to their adult fan base market, and without changing its form (O’neill 2010). Faced with bankruptcy in 2004, Lego no longer ignore the changes in the market and started listening to its consumers and their changing attitudes (O’neill 2010).

With the brand in maturity, brand awareness has already permeated the market and customer had set attitudes. So, the primary goal of Lego is to reconnect its consumer with the brand and change their attitudes toward the product. In this context, a cognitive advertising approach would not work as consumer already knew they could buy Lego, they just needed to persuaded to change what they are buying for.

By this understanding, it led to an emotional approach to advertise its product. Since then, Lego has gone beyond the bricks, and creating an array of movies, such as Lego movies, Lego Batman, Lego Star Wars and Lego Ninjago. By adding story to the toy, it helps to create emotional attachments with consumers. In addition, Lego also start licensing partnership with brands like Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter and DC heros brands to gain consumer endorsement by taking advantage of how they feel for those character. This licensing strategy also seems to work for Adult! For example, my brother, a fan of Star War, has his own set of Star Wars Legos, and he does not mind investing in the toys. This shows that Lego has successfully attracted buyer that are fans of these strong entertainment properties. In fact, according to new research conducted by NPD Group in 2017, a retail analyst, sales of toys to adults have increased by almost two thirds over the past five years, and by more than 20 per cent in 2016 (Kelly 2017). Adults are actually spending more on toys than the kids!

Lego realised that their adult consumers’ attitudes have changed, where they are still a major marketing force, but their needs and belief have changed. Thus, they have begun selling more product geared towards adults, such as Bionicle, a $500 5000 piece Star Wars Lego set, complete with a cool game and storyline to promote it, and an option for fans to design and purchase their own original sets (O’neill 2010). The idea of Lego is to create more challenging innovation – to change existing building systems or platforms to provide a new customer experience (Kastelle 2013). The result was a hit series of toys that generated significant sales for almost a decade. In addition, Lego also began reaching out to fans through social media as well as through Lego brand communities. Through learning the changing market, Lego has shift its attitudes toward its consumer.

References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P. and Adam, S. 2018, Principles of marketing / Armstrong, Adam, Denize, Volkov, Kotler. Pearson Australia.

Kastelle, T 2013, ‘Innovation Lessons from the Rise, Fall, and Rise of LEGO’, The discipline of Innovation, 13th October, assessed 13th May, <http://timkastelle.org/blog/2013/10/innovation-lessons-from-the-rise-fall-and-rise-of-lego/>

Kelly, G 2017, ‘Rise of the ‘kidults’: why toys are no longer just for children’, The Telegraphy, 10th April, assessed 13th May 2019, <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/rise-kidults-toys-no-longer-just-children/>

Milne, R 2013, ‘A play-by-play account of Lego’s decline and resurrection’, Los Angelas Times, 21th June, assessed 13th May, <https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2013-jun-21-la-fi-books-20130623-story.html>

Solomon, M. R., Russell-Bennet, R. and Previte, J. 2019, Consumer behaviour : buying, having, and being / Michael R. Solomon, Rebekah Russell-Bennett, Josephine Previte. Pearson Australia.

A successful marketing will find an effective ways to persuade a customer to purchase the product or service they are selling. As a business student, we are taught to use Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs as a guideline to better understand our target market, and arguing that success depends on meeting one of Maslow’s Identified needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs might be decades old, but there’s wisdom in it that you can apply to your marketing today.

A successful marketing will find an effective ways to persuade a customer to purchase the product or service they are selling. As a business student, we are taught to use Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs as a guideline to better understand our target market, and arguing that success depends on meeting one of Maslow’s Identified needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs might be decades old, but there’s wisdom in it that you can apply to your marketing today.

According to Solomon, Bennett and Previte (2019), Maslow proposed that human behavior and consumer decision making are motivated by five need levels in his hierarchy. Maslow’s work is represented by a pyramid, the hierarchy had five levels of human needs, from the most basic to the most evolved: Physiological, safety, belongingness, ego needs and self-actualisation (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019). Despite the popularity of Maslow’s hierarchy with marketers,  its application has been somewhat simplistic, especially as the same product or activity can satisfy a number of different needs.

Applied to Lego, the key determinant of Lego success is closely connected to these motivational drivers. Lego has effectively appeal to more than 3 basic needs of its customer: Ego needs, Belongingness and self-actualisation.

Lego has helped children develop the right mix of academic and life skills, such as creativity, problem-solving, communication and confidence. When children play with the bricks, they can use their imagination to make anything possible. They can build a starship, a castle or a dinosaur as there are endless of possibilities with Lego bricks. Connecting small pieces of Lego to create a final product that follows a child’s vision can be challenging. And achieving this task holds immense sense of satisfaction that is obvious in a child’s smile when they proudly show off their completed work. This in turn will improve children’s confidence and self-esteem. In addition, Lego play also foster confidence by helping children to develop problem-solving skills where children take picture of what they want to build and has to problem solve to make it look like the picture.

Confidence and self-esteem begin to become important as children move from playing alongside others to actively playing and collaborating with them. And basic friendships and social skills begin to emerge. During Lego play, children practice social skills and social interactions in a setting where the stakes are low. Through play, children learn to come up with ideas with others, share, cooperate, and think about other people’s perspectives. This shows that Lego helps to build social needs too.

Finally, with all other needs met, Lego also helps children to achieve self-actualisation, which they can realise their full potential of building what they want and becoming the most they can be.

According to Solomon, Bennett and Previte (2019), Maslow proposed that human behavior and consumer decision making are motivated by five need levels in his hierarchy. Maslow’s work is represented by a pyramid, the hierarchy had five levels of human needs, from the most basic to the most evolved: Physiological, safety, belongingness, ego needs and self-actualisation (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019). Despite the popularity of Maslow’s hierarchy with marketers,  its application has been somewhat simplistic, especially as the same product or activity can satisfy a number of different needs.

Applied to Lego, the key determinant of Lego success is closely connected to these motivational drivers. Lego has effectively appeal to more than 3 basic needs of its customer: Ego needs, Belongingness and self-actualisation.

Lego has helped children develop the right mix of academic and life skills, such as creativity, problem-solving, communication and confidence. When children play with the bricks, they can use their imagination to make anything possible. They can build a starship, a castle or a dinosaur as there are endless of possibilities with Lego bricks. Connecting small pieces of Lego to create a final product that follows a child’s vision can be challenging. And achieving this task holds immense sense of satisfaction that is obvious in a child’s smile when they proudly show off their completed work. This in turn will improve children’s confidence and self-esteem. In addition, Lego play also foster confidence by helping children to develop problem-solving skills where children take picture of what they want to build and has to problem solve to make it look like the picture.

Confidence and self-esteem begin to become important as children move from playing alongside others to actively playing and collaborating with them. And basic friendships and social skills begin to emerge. During Lego play, children practice social skills and social interactions in a setting where the stakes are low. Through play, children learn to come up with ideas with others, share, cooperate, and think about other people’s perspectives. This shows that Lego helps to build social needs too.

Finally, with all other needs met, Lego also helps children to achieve self-actualisation, which they can realise their full potential of building what they want and becoming the most they can be.

References

Solomon, MR, Bennett, RR & Previte, J 2019, Consumer Behaviour, Australia Group, Sydney.

There are many brands in the marketplace that possess strong gender identities. For example, Marlboro for masculine image and Channel for feminine image. And research shows that gender roles and brand concept can have a significant effect on brand extension evaluations (Jung 2006). Over the years, cross-gender brand extensions are a strategy that has quickly grown to become a vital component of strategic communications management due to the unisex trend in consumer goods (Jung 2006). So…back to the topic – LEGO, which is an unisex brand or used to be of it.

When I was a kid, I used to had a bucket of Lego bricks to played with my brother. And Lego had not much to do with gendered play and everyone played with the same bricks. However, in the past few years, it seems to have a public criticism of The LEGO Group’s gendered marketing of its toys. The criticism became intense especially after its released of “LEGO Friends” in 2012, which aimed especially at girls (Czerski 2014). The sets are predominantly pink, simple to construct and celebrating not architecture and action but beauty salons, cupcake bakeries and poodle parlours (Betts 2012).  What made it even more depressing was that the company claimed it was the result of extensive research of ‘the way girls naturally build and play’ (The Lego Group, 2011).

Back to the 60s, LEGO bricks were originally marketed as toys for boys and girls equally (Madrid 2015). However, since 1980, LEGO’s product shift from its initial relatively, gender neutral to a more male dominated toy and gendered play (Madrid 2015). This can be reflected in their packaging, commercial campaign and its product.

For example, we can always see commercial for LEGO highlighting some of the special moments of a father and a son bonding over building things together. It’s not a problem for LEGO featuring a father-son stories, yet, why is it so rare to see a grandma, mothers or daughter in this build together market campaign? In contrast, LEGO Friends commercials show only female children, and strongly marketed in a way that this toy is not for boys.

Besides that, the design of Lego’s products are also almost exclusively to boys, where girls have been largely left out. Try to look at this first plastic people, now known as ‘minifigs’, which had fun hairstyles, endearing smiles, and arms that bent and swiveled. The minifig is an iconic symbol of LEGO brand, over the years, Lego had shifted the initially gender-neutral minifigure to a gendered minifigure, which they have now got facial hair, eyelashes or lipsticks. As Lego has provided more detail in the face and bodies of minifigures, gender identification in minifigure faces became a thing and people started concern on the male:female ratio of the gendered minifigures (Ramblingbrick 2016). (To know more about the gender distribution of Lego’s minifigure, read this https://ramblingbrick.com/2016/09/29/living-with-divercity-changing-depictions-of-gender-roles-with-lego-minifigures-in-the-post-friends-era/)

As a case in point, Lego Friends line introduced someplace called Heartlake City, which is a pastel coloured gender segregated stereotypically female suburban paradise (Czerski 2014). In order to make it optimized to girl’s interest and tastes, Lego recreated their minifig to a more doll-alike minifig, a taller and slimmer version with big, big eyes, raised button nose, pointed chin and wearing a short skirt. I know that barbie dolls are popular among girls, and Lego is trying to find way to integrate the LEGO experience into this existing model of play, but one that nevertheless perpetuated stereotypes. Besides that, the Lego Friends set covered everything in pink and purple, from the packaging to the bricks themselves. There’s nothing wrong with pink and purple as girls seem fond these colours, however, the problem is pink and purple are hardly appear in the Lego City sets marketed to boys. In addition, the friends theme sets focus on traditionally female identified tasks: bakery, beauty salon, homemaking, vet, which are rooted in deeply stereotypical and limiting roles for women in children’s toys, while you cannot find any beauty salon in the Lego City (Black, Tomlinson & Korobkova 2016). And this make me feel like they are selling the idea that girls and boys cannot play with the same toys, that girls have to have “special Lego”, which are inferior to boy toys. At least that’s what the marketing tell us.

Indeed, tens of thousands of people signed a petition complaining about the message that Lego Friends subtly sends to children about what girls should value (Lafrance 2016). I’m not surprise that there’s a lot of momentum around this Friend Line as most of the parents want their kids to have alternatives to gender-biased toy that encourage boys and girls to play together with each other.

According to Lafrance (2016), the blog mentioned that “If Lego wants to convey the idea that any kid can play with any of its products, for example, it’s strange that Friends are found on the Lego website under a subhead “Girls“, the implication being that the rest of the site is not for girls (And that girls themselves are in a subcategory of children.)”

In my opinion, it’s technically no wrong to have a gendered marketed toy for Lego (eg. Lego Friends), but Lego should change the way they marketed their toys, or else the arguments for and against Lego Friends will not be stopped.

How do you think of Lego Friends and its marketing technique? As a parent, will you buy Lego Friends for your child?

References

Betts, H 2012, ‘Lego Friends petition: why feminists should think twice before they sign’, The Guardian, 5th September, assessed 1st May 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/04/lego-friends-feminists-think-twice>

Black, R.W, Tomlinson, B & Korobkova, K 2016, ‘Play and identity in gendered LEGO franchises’, International Journal of Play, vol.5, no.1, pp64-76, <https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/doi/pdf/10.1080/21594937.2016.1147284?needAccess=true>

Czerski, H 2014, ‘Lego still builds gender stereotypes’, The Guardian, 6th June, assessed 1st May 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/06/lego-gender-stereotypes-scientists-female-minifigures>

Jung, K 2006, “Cross-Gender Brand Extensions: Effects of Gender of Brand, Gender of Consumer and Product Type on Evaluation of Cross-Gender Extensions”, NA – Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 33, eds. Connie Pechmann and Linda Price, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 67-74.

Madrid, I 2015, ‘From gender neutral beginnings to pink princess themes and today’s female STEM minifigs: LEGO’s messy history of marketing to girls’, PRI’s The World, 2nd July, assessed 1st May 2019, <https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/gender-neutral-beginnings-pink-princess-themes-and-todays-female-stem-minifigs>

The Lego Group 2011, 19 December, LEGO group to deliver meaningful play experiences to girls with new LEGO FRIENDS, LEGO, <http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/newsroom/2011/december/lego-group-to-deliver-meaningful-play-experiences-to-girls-with-newlego-friends/&gt;

What is classical conditioning?

According to Solomon, Bennett and Previte (2019), classical conditioning is a form of learning whereby a conditioned stimulus (CS) becomes associated with an unrelated unconditioned stimulus (US) in order to produce a behavioural response known as conditioned response (CR). The conditioned response is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus.

When you think of “bricks/blocks”, what brand do you associated with? Lego?

Lego is one of the most successful toy brand. Since it was founded in 1932, countless generations of children have grown up with Lego toys. Lego says that on average, every person in the world owns 102 Lego bricks (Hall 2015). Its strong reputation becomes the ultimate competitive in the highly competitive toy industry. Lego provides its consumer an extraordinary range of playing experience, which it gives a sense of empowerment when the player has control over their imagination and ingenuity to build its own Lego. As a result, consumers are emotionally connected with the brand because it repeatedly engaged with their imagination and desires. This would be a good example of classical conditioning that consumer’s play experience and imagination are consistently paired with conditioned stimuli (Lego) in addition to visual logo.

Most of the people associated the toy blocks/bricks with Lego, even the products are not produced by the Lego brand itself. And when we see Lego’s logo, we straight away think of building brick with imagination. The blocks are conditioned stimuli and Lego is the conditioned response, vice versa. This is because we have attributed it – stimulus generalisation. Stimulus generalisation refers to the tendency of stimuli similar to a conditioned stimulus to evoke similar conditioned responses (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019). 

As mentioned in my previous blog, Lego also adopted licensing strategies based on stimulus generalisation. This strategy refers to rented well-known names and linked it with their products or services in order to increase in popularity (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019). Lego is consistently fostering its strategy in focusing on creating new sets by adding different features and meanings to existing bricks. And there is where Lego start licencing with the well-established movie studio and other brands and fill its product with the stories and characters meanings. Disney/Pixar, Warner Bros, and Lucas Films are among the partners that have licensed media franchises such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo, Disney princess and Jurassic Park (Handley 2019). An example of licensed product is Millennium Falcon (a starship in the “Star Wars” franchise), respectively, it is the Lego’s best-selling product.

This strategy enabled the company to increase the value of existing products, which made buyers willing to spend more on them. This is because buyer perceive it as a higher value product as consumers not only can create their own Lego story, but also can use the versatility of Lego pieces to create their own version of toy. It’s no surprise Lego has become the one of the most profitable toy company in the world.

References

Hall, T 2015, ‘Here’s what you didn’t know about Lego’, Business Report, 24^th November, assessed 10^th April 2019, <https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/international/heres-what-you-didnt-know-about-lego-1949952>

Handley, L 2019, ‘How marketing built Lego into the world’s favourite toy brand’, CNBC, 10^th April, assessed 10^th April 2019, < https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/lego-marketing-strategy-made-it-world-favorite-toy-brand.html>

Solomon, MR, Bennett, RR & Previte, J 2019, Consumer Behaviour, Australia Group, Sydney.

Perception is the process by which physical sensation such as sights, sounds, taste, texture and smells are selected, organized and interpreted (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019). It is the central of sensory stimuli into a meaningful pattern, but not all sensations are perceived. Many stimuli in our environment compete for our attention, but only minority of the stimuli are being noticed (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019). And as an individual, we have different perceptions cause the way we interpret the meaning of a stimulus are influences by our unique biases, needs and experiences (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019).

Indeed, the perceptions consumers perceive from a business and its products or services can have a dramatic effect on consumer behavior (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019). That’s why business invest a lot of money in creating a strong stimulus to grab consumer attention. For example, Lego is a successful brand which use visual communication to attract consumer.

Even though Lego have a market position and brand equity their competitors can only dream of, they have an endless appetite for creating brand expressions that capture the spirit and wonder of their brand’s core essence. Lego is constantly focused on developing its visual brand assets – colours, shapes and symbols that they can own and leverage to create brand equity through all of their visual brand expressions. Lego has featured a wide array of attractive pastel colours, applicable to anything from bricks to minifigures, which allow consumers to combine them in so many creative ways. According to CNBC news, Lego have more than 3,700 different types of pieces, from mini figures to tubes and accessories such as wheels and swords and more than 900 million building combinations are possible with just six bricks of the same colour (Handley 2018). These small colourful bricks are appealing to almost every individual, regardless of any age, attracted by the idea of building things.

Besides of the packaging design, Lego also communicate its brand by using featured eye-catching, recognizable display in their advertising.

These advertising has successfully grab attentions of the on-the-go customer and create a memorable brand connection. Especially for the Lego Outdoor Billboard, Lego is using experiential marketing theory, which seeks opportunity to connect with consumers by engaging in a sensory way and drawing on the consumers’ personal experience (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019). The Lego advertising board was not only visibly attracted the consumer, but also allowed consumer to has a closure contact with the actual product by ‘touching’ it.

When consumer associate with the act of touching products, this sensation can actually affect consumer response. Recent years, Lego brand is frequently looking to engage with consumers via events to offer fun engagement and encourage hands on building to show that building with Lego is fun and with your imagination, you can build anything. In fact, research shows that consumers are more willing to buy the product after they associate with the texture and quality of the products (Solomon, Bennett & Previte 2019).

Rather than focus solely on its iconic colored building blocks, the brand also licensing partnership with the likes of Star Wars, Harry Potter, SpongeBob, and a number of superhero brands to gain children endorsement by taking advantage of the affection children feel for those characters. When licensing program design is expertly developed, products and packaging are used as major platforms through which to visually communicate and advance their stories in a tangible manner. It does not only tell stories, but also encourage the consumer to become co-creators of these stories (Mininni 2014).   

As a result of accomplishing a dazzling array of licensing deals with powerful properties, Lego has successfully attracted buyers that are fans of these strong entertainment properties, helping to catapult the brand into their consciousness.

I think Lego is such a successful brand of using visual communication as a key to market its brand to the consumer, and I believed that it is one of the reason that helps them stayed at the top of children’s wish list.

What do you think of the visual marketing strategy of Lego? Do you know any brands that use the similar approach?

References

Handley, L 2018, ‘How marketing build Lego into the world’s favourite toy brand’, CNBC, 27^th April, accessed 2^nd April 2019, <https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/lego-marketing-strategy-made-it-world-favorite-toy-brand.html>

Mininni, T 2014, ‘Create a brand new world with packaging’, Packaging World, 4 September, assessed 2^nd April 2019, <https://www.packworld.com/article/package-design/strategy/create-brand-new-world-packaging>

Solomon, MR, Bennett, RR & Previte, J 2019, Consumer Behaviour, Australia Group, Sydney.