Archive of tag "LEGO"

3-Minute WOM Lesson: How LEGO connects and supports their growing network of fans -- live from Word of Mouth Supergenius

June 1, 2010

[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]

As a preview for Word of Mouth Supergenius on July 20 in New York, we’re taking a look back at some of the amazing presentations from our last “How to be Great at Word of Mouth Marketing” conference in Chicago.

Here, Jake McKee of Ant’s Eye View shares how LEGO found and supported their biggest fans. His big ideas:

1> Look beyond your target customers
2> Support existing fans
3> Find what works and replicate
4> See Jake’s live presentation

1> Look beyond your target customers

Your target market isn’t always your biggest group of talkers. For years, LEGO was focused on kids -– that is, until they realized adults had created their own community of enthusiasts. When LEGO started connecting these talkers, not only did they increase their word of mouth, they immediately helped their bottom line. Whereas kids were spending $20 a year on LEGOs, these adults were spending around $1,000.

2> Support existing fans

Without LEGO’s knowledge, adult fans had already created an online LEGO community and marketplace. LEGO approached this group by offering support and resources in the form of an ambassador program. By offering to support what these fans were already doing so well — instead of demanding ownership and control — LEGO was welcomed into the community.

3> Find what works and replicate

The enthusiasm of the adult fans helped teach LEGO how to gain more participation from their other fans -– including kids. Jake says that when you find something that works with one fan group, try applying it to other groups of talkers. Because the fundamentals of great communities are the same, strategies behind one fan community can often generate similar success for another community.

4> See Jake’s live presentation from Word of Mouth Supergenius

Check out Jake’s presentation from Word of Mouth Supergenius — and join us live in New York on July 20 to see a bunch of amazing marketers share case studies like this:

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Word of Mouth Tip #88: Embrace your strange, crazy, and weird fans

January 13, 2010

While it may be difficult to imagine for some, a group of super-dedicated, enthusiastic, and non-traditional fans can be overwhelming for a brand.

It happens when a group of fans emerge from an audience well outside of what you thought was your target market, or perhaps when folks become really attached to your mascot, or even in parodies or remakes of your work.

Great word of mouth marketers look for opportunities these passionate fans pose and find ways to channel their energy into long-term loyalty.

How a word of mouth supergenius does it:

For years, LEGO focused on a target market of boys aged 7 to 12 — and largely ignored a “weird” group of adults who often emailed them with enthusiastic ideas and suggestions.

But as it turns out, this small, “weird” group of fans were some of the brand’s biggest talkers — and the most profitable. Where an active youth fan would spend $20 a year on LEGOs, an adult would spend upwards of $1,000.

LEGO began empowering these fans by helping them organize and share ideas, designing more products for them, and giving them the opportunity to create their own sets.

The results:

  • In 5 years, LEGO went from losing money to being highly profitable
  • LEGO is taking the lessons learned from empowering their adult fans to other groups of enthusiastic fans
  • LEGO is going beyond the bricks and is now launching a massively multiplayer online game to further connect their enthusiasts

Learn More:

LEGO’s mind shift from company to consumer — via Merritt Colaizzi at SmartBrief

Jake McKee’s live case study at Word of Mouth Supergenius

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Case Study: LEGO -- live from Word of Mouth Supergenius

December 16, 2009

2:20 — Bergen Anderson introduces Ant’s Eye View’s Jake McKee.2:23 — Jake McKee says, “a powerful global conversation has started.”

2:24 — “Inside Fort Business” nothing gets in, and nothing gets out unless it’s dead. In 1999 the majority of LEGO’s business came from Christmas, and the week before Christmas–LEGO used to rely on their three biggest retailers on creating their products. Their social media plan was inspired by, “Cluetrain Manifesto”.

2:25 — LEGO was told by the big retailers that they didn’t know enough about their customers, and that they needed to learn more.

2:26 — “Paranoia kills conversation. That’s its point. But lack of open conversation kills companies.” When you’re dealing with kids, everyone is scared. “We don’t accept unsolicited ideas.”

2:27 — The legal department decided it was the core policy that LEGO had to stick with because they kept getting into litigation over “stealing” ideas. This eventually evolved into not accepting ideas period. The customer conversation was almost cut off completely

2:28 — “When we have questions we turn to each other for answers.” It was hard to get ideas as a company that relies heavily on young kids to determine what will sell.

2:29 — Jake is showing slides of old forums that were developed back in 1995.

2:30 — Adult fans started to build their own marketplace before LEGO even began to think about utilizing that demographic. All of this happened without the interaction of LEGO.

2:31 — “You’re too busy ‘doing business’ to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we’ll come back later. Maybe.” All of this began because LEGO didn’t accept ideas from its customers.

2:33 — The majority of LEGO’s clients were boys ages 7-12, that was who they worked for. The 5% minority was adults. One of the first adult LEGO enthusiast was given a shopping spree in the LEGO company store–he spent $2,000 dollars and had to re-arrange his flight to ship things back home to himself.

2:34 — The average kid would spend $10 a year on LEGOs. The more active kid fans of LEGOs would spend $20 a year. The adult enthusiasts would spend upwards of thousands of dollars per year on LEGOs. This is all without the conversation, and engagement of LEGOs the company.

2:35 — The adult fans of LEGOs got on the front cover of the LA Times in a full picture. LEGOs had been pitching the LA Times for months to get a story.

2:36 — Jake shows a slide:

“The old way” Company —> Customer

“Today” Company <—> Customer

2:36 — The idea of LEGO evolved into, “LEGO is a creative platform,” that engages in two way conversation with its customers.

2:37 — Online system is now available with a custom box that can be designed, bought, and shipped to your house in a matter of weeks.

2:38 — We are not talking about one group of fans. (The adults) We were taking the experiment as a case study for what we could do with enthusiastic fans. “Live it, play it.”

2:39 — The enthusiasm of the adult fans helped teach LEGO how to gain more fans with their other fans including kids.

2:40 — Today, LEGO is highly profitable after taking large losses earlier in the decade. It even lead to a Wired magazine cover story.

Q&A

Q: What was the initial step taken to join in the conversation from completely ignoring the two way conversation?

A: Jake: “Philosophy of 10,000 paper cuts.” We tried a few things and slowly learned what worked. The first step was to start interacting anywhere:

- Forums
- Bars
- People’s houses

They didn’t worry about approval. They went out with tenacity and kept pounding away until they found small successes, and then presented their successes and gradually were given larger and larger projects.

Q: After you connected with the new target market (Adults) what was the impact on sales?

A: Jake: Whenever you’re working with adults on a kids toy you have to accept the fact that those percentages would be small. We tried not to worry as much initially about sales at first and focused on the small successes– until the small successes eventually ramped up to being larger and larger successes. As soon as they adopted that “LEGO was a creative medium” sales went through the roof.

Q: As soon as conversations became two way conversations, how did that change things?

A: Jake: When we started to develop new LEGO sets that were $300 it took a long time to get it approved internally–luckily, we didn’t have to get approval, and we produced it anyway. We had major success with the large sets of LEGOs with our direct to consumer store. When that young kid sees that at his uncle’s house, he knows that that’s what he wants. Year after year we started seeing more successes.

People started going into stores to get products that they could only get direct from us. There are sets that are good for kids and themes that have been reintroduced that go into the retail line of LEGO–and those products still sell extremely well and that keeps our retailers happy.

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How LEGO is connecting their amazing network of fans -- live with Ant's Eye View's Jake McKee

November 16, 2009

Continuing our previews for Word of Mouth Supergenius: The “How to be Great at Word of Mouth Marketing” Conference on December 16 here in Chicago, we bring you word of mouth supergenius and Chief Strategy Officer and Ant Wrangler at Ant’s Eye View, Jake McKee.

Here Jake shares a few tips on connecting fans based on the case study from LEGO he’ll be presenting:

  • Get shoulder to shoulder with your fans. Just by showing up and asking fans what they were interested in, Jake saw them get really enthusiastic and excited.
  • True fans will do it for love, not money. It might amaze you how much fans will do just for a pat on the back. Even if you don’t have a big budget, you still have your relationship, a personality, and kudos to give.
  • Think about your overall purpose. Other than just moving products around and making profits, how are you hoping to make the world better?

Hear Jake’s live Supergenius preview (and check out our Facebook page to see all our interviews):

GasPedal's Word of Mouth Supergenius Conference!

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