『#228: Saving Lego – The Amazing Turnaround』のカバーアート

#228: Saving Lego – The Amazing Turnaround

#228: Saving Lego – The Amazing Turnaround

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 From almost going out of business in 2000 to becoming the biggest toy manufacturer in the world. This is an empire! Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [OG Law Ad) Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple. What Steve told me is that it's a little bit different episode today. We're not talking about the building of an empire, but the saving of the LEGO Empire, right? It was already an empire, and as empires sometimes do, I guess starting to collapse. Stephen Semple: Yep, yeah. Dave Young: And then something happened. Stephen Semple: Here's the thing that's remarkable. According to studies I've come across, when companies go through the type of challenge that LEGO faced, only literally one in 10 survive it. Most businesses do not survive it. And they not only survived, they went from being, I think they were the third-largest toy manufacturer to after facing this crisis, they became the largest toy manufacturer in the world. Dave Young: Wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: So not only did they survive, they thrived. And today they employ over 30,000 people, they have over 1,000 stores. And you can learn more about the early days of LEGO by going back to another episode, episode 28. Can you believe it was 28? We did it in the first year- Dave Young: Wow. Yeah. Stephen Semple: ... of the podcast. But in early 2000, they literally almost went out of business. They were facing a moment where it was unclear whether they were going to survive and they were even in conversations to sell to other toy manufacturers. They were even in conversations with Mattel. Dave Young: Because I don't know exactly how this went, but I can hazard a guess that the pivot they were able to make was to just start prepackaging kits and licensing things from movies and other things, other toys. Because when I was a kid, I had LEGOs, but man, if you wanted to build something specific, you had to come up with that yourself, right? There was no kit that made a battleship or a Star Wars fighter or anything like that. You were lucky if you had a couple of the little window things and maybe one or two little figures, but that was about it. Stephen Semple: Ironically, it's part of what saved them, but also part of what almost killed them. Dave Young: Oh, okay. Stephen Semple: So it's interesting. Dave Young: Right, I'm leaning in. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So we go back to 1997, and basically sales had started to stall in '93, and so they were looking for other ways to grow the business because video games were coming in, all these other things were going on. And in 1997, Peter Eio is an executive with LEGO, and what he's noticed, because he's working in the US market, he's seen a trend in the toy business where half of the toys in the US are being sold under licensing deals. So he puts together a deal with Lucasfilms to do Star Wars. And at first, LEGO's really hesitant because they've never, first of all, done the licensing. Their real hesitation is the Lightsaber and blasters and the fact that it involves weapons. Because LEGO was always committed to, "There would never be any violent use of the toys." Dave Young: They're peaceful Scandinavians. Stephen Semple: Companies being run by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, who's a family member, and the grandson of the founder, they do some focus groups and they come around to it, because the evidence is that parents don't associate S...
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