The word "LEGO" comes from the Danish word "LEg GOdt", which means "play well" (play well), which means "combined together" in Latin. The fun of Lego lies in its almost limitless combination possibilities. The seemingly simple Lego blocks have more than 915 million ways to play. So despite the high prices, Lego is still loved by people of different ages, inspiring countless people's fantastic ideas and ingenuity. These small plastic building blocks have transformed Lego from a company that makes building blocks into a huge toy empire spanning film, television, games and other industries. In addition to the infinite creativity of the brand itself, Lego's success also benefits from knowing that relying on the influence of popular culture, cross-industry infiltrating brand culture into every corner of life. In February of this year, the first Lego brand flagship store in Beijing opened in Wangfujing, which incorporates many ingenious design elements and immersive play experiences, and has also won daily high-traffic customers. From a small workshop that produces building blocks to a Lego empire spanning the entire industry, Lego has long been more than a toy company. However, the "Lego Movie 2" released on March 22 is not only a mediocre harvest in North America, but also suffered the same "unacceptable" in China as the previous film. The box office for 10 days of the show was only about 17 million yuan. From the cooperation with film and television IP to the production of "Lego Movie" with Warner in 2014, the transformation of toy movies into Lego has brought huge benefits, so will related Lego toy movies be the focus of Lego's marketing in the future? Will the established toy company transform into a movie company?
Lego industry layout
industry-wide cross-border marketing, catching up on popular
As early as 2010, Lego reached a partnership with Warner Pictures and its Warner Interactive Entertainment, and shot a series of Lego-themed animated films. At the same time, Lego has moved from creating its own story product line to cooperate with other well-known IPs such as "The Simpsons" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". The "Lego Movie" released in 2014 was also completed on the basis of these collaborations. Through these collaborations, the film has gradually become an important part of the LEGO brand value.
"Lego Batman Movie" brings a lot of sales to Lego related toys.
In 2013, Lego and Warner Bros. Pictures announced that their next three new games will launch their own brand "Chima", and they landed on the Apple App Store in February 2014 to capture the adult market. Lego Batman, Lego Marvel superhero, Lego Lord of the Rings, Lego Harry Potter and other IP collaborations have brought new fun to Lego fans. In the past ten years, they have brought about $165 million in revenue to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, which includes IP games.
From movies to works of art, to social media marketing, Lego has already played with various techniques of content marketing, which is why many people call Lego an excellent media company, not just a toy.
cooperates with Warner
interactive win-win
In 2009, the then-Chinese-American producer Dan Lin of Warner brought two screenwriters to the Lego headquarters to express his intention to cooperate in making the Lego movie. At that time, the annual growth rate of 20%-25% allowed Lego not to care too much about the additional business opportunities brought by the movie, until Warner impressed the Lego decision-making team with relatively innovative content planning: abandon the existing story of Lego toys, and the two sides designed from scratch The plot, using a Lego movie that can attract audiences of all ages, helps toy products break through the age group (5-12 years old).
Lego Chief Marketing Officer Julia Golding once said in an interview, “The secret of working with Warner Bros. is that we both allow each other to do what we really do.” Lego’s designers create characters, Warner’s Responsible for making animation. Therefore, in the two big movies, the Lego team is mainly engaged in design and model making. Four months after "The Lego Movie" was released in 2014, Lego Toys' sales increased by 11% in half a year, surpassing Mattel for the first time. In 2014, Lego's annual sales amounted to approximately US$4.35 billion, making it the world's largest toy manufacturer. This is also the first time that toy giant Mattel has been surpassed in 59 years. "The Lego Movie" was made at a $60 millionThe cost of operating at a global box office of $469 million has also benefited Warner a lot.
"Lego Movie" toy.
At the same time, Lego movies also give IP a new vitality. The versatility and cuteness of Lego components have caused a wonderful chemical reaction between the classic characters of Hollywood blockbusters and Lego toys, creating a dream Lego movie world, using Lego villains to interpret new original plots and character settings , Sublimating a children's toy into the ranks of collectibles, bringing a lot of new fans to this old IP, making it an unprecedented commercial success. With the huge influence of Lego toys, Lego movies have secured the box office, and Lego movies have reversed the sales of toys and developed new Lego product lines. This is a breakthrough win-win situation for Lego and Warner.
Lego movie series from a blockbuster to a fading sense of freshness
"The Lego Movie"
The "Lego Movie" released in 2014 tells about an ordinary Lego architect Emmet, who was mistaken as a creative master and joined a resistance organization , Together with a wizard, tried to prevent the Lego World Business President from solidifying the world's sinister plan with super glue.
"Lego Movie" poster. The character image of
, an animated film jointly produced by Warner Bros. and Lego, comes from Lego. It overtook Disney's "Big Hero 6" in the North American market and became the most popular cartoon. It was released in North America and successfully hit 469 million. US dollar box office, and strongly promoted the sales of Lego toys in the first half of 2014. In September 2014, Lego announced that most of the group's US$2.03 billion in profit in the first half of the year was due to the boost in sales of the company's derivative toys in February 2014 by the "Lego Movie".
“Leverage creativity and imagination to stack building blocks and increase the intimate connection between parents and children through games.” The Lego Movie is so popular not only because it is an excellent cartoon, but more importantly The reason is that after 80 years of development, "Lego Toys" has formed a culture that has become popular all over the world.
"Lego Batman Movie"
"Lego Batman Movie" poster. After the great success of
"The Lego Movie", the producers quickly confirmed that the "Lego Batman Movie" will be released on February 10, 2017. The film is directed by Chris McKay, editor of The Lego Movie. Almost all the scenes in the film are built with Lego bricks, including the previous two series of "Batman" movies, DC Universe and pop culture stalks, both at the box office and reputation.
"Lego Ninja Ninja Movie" poster.
"Lego Ninja Ninja Movie" poster.
"Lego Ninja Ninja Movie" is inspired by the Ninja series launched by Lego in 2011. It tells the story of 6 seemingly ordinary high school students who were trained by Master Wu to become martial arts ninjas who transformed into battle against various monsters and protected their homes every night. In the English version of the film, Master Wu specially invited Kung Fu superstar Jackie Chan as the voice.
"The Lego Movie 2"
"The Lego Movie 2" is the fourth Lego movie feature for Warner Bros. to obtain the franchise. Producer Dan Lin once said that he and the studio have not yet committed to making a fifth film, so "Lego Movie 2" is more like a pathfinder, to see if fans are still willing to accept Lego to make movies. If it succeeds, there will be more investment in projects, including TV programs.
"Lego Movie 2" poster.
However, since its release in North America on February 8, "The Lego Movie 2" has only received $34.4 million in the box office in the first week. The scores of IMDb and Douban are both 7 points, and the freshness of rotten tomatoes is 86%, which is significantly lower than the predecessor. Although it has not regressed in terms of visual effects and entertainment attributes, its creativity and freshness have obviously faded, and the creative concept is outdated. Many viewers have expressed that they have been tired of playing tricks and talking rationally.And forcibly reverse the plot. As a natural extension of the Lego brand, Lego movies and a large number of Lego games and family movies have the same spiritual temperament, which fully satisfies the fun of collecting eggs for the audience, and is called a masterpiece. In addition to the pursuit of boundless innovation, Lego fans also have a strong spoof spirit. The imitation and parody of classic movies and popular events has also become a feature of Lego movies. Whether it's the classic posters or scenes in "Titanic", "X-Men" or "The Hobbit", or the World Cup and Olympic events, they will basically be replaced by Lego fans with naive Lego minifigures. These spiritual spoofs may be one of the inspiration sources for the future "Lego Movie 3".
Other derivative works
Oscar-nominated short film
For example, in the 88th Oscar-nominated short film in 2016, Lego minifigures are used. This two-and-a-half-minute film was released by the YouTube channel Toscano Bricks and contains eight classic images from the Oscar nominations that year. They are "Focus", which won the best film, and the nominated "Mad Max 4: Fury Road", "The Martian", "Wilderman", "The Room", "Big Short", "Brooklyn" and "Spy Bridge" .
"Lego Jurassic World"
When "Jurassic Park 4" was released in 2015, the film crew also cooperated with Lego to release an online game and produced a short film promotion game. The Tyrannosaurus rex in the short film first appeared handsomely, but then he accidentally dropped his chin, very stupid and cute.
"Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens" trailer
"Star Wars" series of toys.
Lego and Star Wars have a long history of cooperation. Not only produced a large number of Star Wars toys, but also released Lego version of Star Wars games and even Lego version of Star Wars cartoons. After the release of the second trailer of "The Force Awakens", Lego also launched a Lego version of the trailer.
Lego version of the revival trailer
After Lego launched the Marvel Avengers game, Lego also shot a Lego version of the "Avengers" trailer. In addition to the characters, the game also contains a lot of classic scenes from movies. Just like a Marvel movie remade with Lego villains, even the dialogue of the game characters is authentic.
Sales of toys and derivatives. External IP cooperation tends to be conservative.
Lego strives to present all well-known landmarks, buildings, cartoon characters, and even movie and game scenes. The rich product line provides Lego with new vitality. Lego City, Star Wars series, Technology series, Duplo series, Ninja Ninja series, Street View series, Sapphire series, Lego Girl series, etc., satisfy the preferences of children of different ages and personalities. The best-selling of these is the city series.
In order to break the gender restrictions, Lego also launched "Frozen" and NASA female scientist series, which received enthusiastic responses from female players.
2018, Lego's overwhelming annual work, is the collector's edition of Hogwarts Castle. It restores the main scenes in the Harry Potter movie, and also contains 4 exclusive minifigures. It is a favorite of Lego fans and Harry Potter fans. The cooperation between
and film and television IP has also driven the sales and innovation of Lego toys. Since the 1990s, Lego has used popular film and television characters as a selling point, and successively launched toy sets of different themes such as "The Simpsons", "Dath Vader's Death Star" and "Superman". The sales of the "Star Wars" series launched in 1999 reached six times the expected. The cooperation between
and Star Wars has become the most successful and lasting partnership in the history of the toy industry. The sales volume of the Lego Star Wars series launched by "Star Wars Episode 1" in the first few years before the launch exceeded 1/6 of the company's total sales. Star Wars is still one of the three best-selling series in the world. According to statistics, if you need to buy all the Lego toys produced by the Star Wars and Lego series, the former will cost about 15,000 US dollars, and the latter will also cost about 1,800 US dollars.
Star Wars is still one of the three best-selling Lego series worldwide. imageIn order to promote the 2014 Lego Movie, Lego launched a total of 18 sets in 2014 and 2015. However, the licensing of derivatives does not bring all the benefits to Lego. Excessive reliance on external IP has caused serious consequences. The year when there was no "Star Wars" or "Harry Potter" series of movies, and the lack of time-sensitive hot films, also led to a sharp decline in the sales of movie derivative products. In fact, in 2003, the Lego Group suffered the largest loss in history, with product sales falling by 30% year-on-year. In 2004, it faced a financial deficit of approximately 1.4 billion Danish kroner (225 million US dollars).
is a natural extension of the Lego brand, and the main consumer of Lego is still children, and its film production must conform to its concept of children's education. Whether Lego can break through its limitations at the script level is still worth looking forward to. The cooperation with film and television companies such as Warner has brought huge benefits to Lego, but it is not difficult to see that Lego still maintains a conservative attitude towards movies. In the future, protecting brand value and expanding the toy-based business line will still be Lego's focus.
"Lego Movie 2" behind-the-scenes data
