Story selling: how LEGO told a story and sold a toy

Abstract

Introduces LEGO’s Bionicle toy: it was aimed at boys aged 7‐12 and was developed as part of a new ongoing epic story, with the emphasis on this “movie” aspect rather than on the constructional aspects of the toy: constructional toys are a shrinking market because boys no longer want to take the time to complete them. Relates the Bionicle concept to LEGO’s previous successful toys Slizer and RoboRiders, and to its existing success in buying into stories like Star Wars. Describes how LEGO worked closely with Advance to develop the story and to market the concept in advance of the product; this was very successful. Moves on to the next step, which was to market the “movie” by a wide range of media, such as posters and cinema advertisements, plus media that could carry the parts of the story itself – a website, a CD‐ROM and comics; this carefully designed mosaic of media was accompanied by compelling graphics, phasing the story to maintain involvement, and getting the children to pass on the story parts to each other (i.e. peer‐to‐peer marketing). Concludes with how the campaign has benefited the overall perception of LEGO and led to a wider product range.

Citation

Fonnesbaek, J. and Melbye Andersen, M. (2005), "Story selling: how LEGO told a story and sold a toy", Young Consumers, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 31-39. https://doi.org/10.1108/17473610510680885