This article was downloaded by: [Washington State University Libraries ]On: 24 October 2014, At: 23:00Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

History and Technology: AnInternational JournalPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ghat20

Playing outside the box – on LEGO toysand the changing world of constructionplayMaaike LauwaertPublished online: 17 Apr 2008.

To cite this article: Maaike Lauwaert (2008) Playing outside the box – on LEGO toys and thechanging world of construction play, History and Technology: An International Journal, 24:3,221-237, DOI: 10.1080/07341510801900300

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07341510801900300

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

History and TechnologyVol. 24, No. 3, September 2008, 221–237

ISSN 0734-1512 print/ISSN 1477-2620 online© 2008 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/07341510801900300http://www.informaworld.com

Playing outside the box – on LEGO toys and the changing world of construction play

Maaike Lauwaert*

Taylor and FrancisGHAT_A_290196.sgm10.1080/07341510801900300History and Technology0734-1512 (print)/1477-2620 (online)Original Article2008Taylor & Francis243000000September 2008MAAIKELAUWAERTmaaikelauwaert@gmail.com This article deals with three major instances in the history of the LEGO Company. First, itinvestigates the transference from wood to plastics as the main material used in creating LEGOtoys, and also the innovations in plastic molding machines that influenced the interlockingmechanism of the LEGO bricks. Second, this article deals with a rather unfortunate episodefrom the LEGO history, namely, the period between the late 1990s and the early twenty-firstcentury when the LEGO Company felt the need to extend its brand image through diversifyingits product range. Unfortunately, this led to a confusing, rather than a strong brand image andresulted in heavy financial losses in 2003 and 2004. Third, this article looks into recentattempts by the LEGO Company to bring the fans into the company in order to revive theLEGO brand and its products. This part focuses on Mindstorms 2.0 and Mindstorms NXT,especially, in order to illustrate the increase in user involvement in LEGO productdevelopment.

Keywords: LEGO; technological innovation; branding; product development; play; toys

Introduction

This article focuses on the interplay between technological innovations, changing practices ofplay and user perception. An important aspect of this article is branding and marketing. It dealswith three major instances in the history of the LEGO Company. First, the article investigates thetransference from wood to plastics as the main material used in creating LEGO toys and looks atinnovations in the level of plastic molding machines that influenced the interlocking mechanismof the LEGO bricks. Second, this article deals with a rather unfortunate episode from the LEGOhistory, namely, the period between the late 1990s and early twenty-first century when theLEGO Company felt the need to extend its brand image through diversifying its product range.Unfortunately, this led to a confusing rather than a strong brand image and resulted in heavyfinancial losses in 2003 and 2004. Third, this article looks into recent attempts by the LEGOCompany to bring the fans into the company in order to revive the LEGO brand and its products.This third part focuses on the LEGO Robotica kits Mindstorms 2.0 and Mindstorms NXT whichillustrate the increasing importance of users in LEGO product development (so-called ‘user-driven innovation’).

The article traces historically how technological innovations, toys, and play practices formand shape one another. Certain findings related to the changing production and consumption ofLEGO toys signal, mirror, and relate to broader societal and cultural changes. Nowadays, the useof the ‘many-to-many’ business model in which consumers also become producers and ‘marke-teers’ increases among various and diverging domains. This raises critical questions related tocreative rights.

*Email: maaikelauwaert@gmail.com

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

222 M. Lauwaert

Wood and plastics – changing practices of production and play

In 1932 the carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958) established what is known today as theLEGO Company in the Danish village Billund. He started out by manufacturing houses and furni-ture but had to change his production line to smaller objects such as stepladders and ironingboards when the depression hit Denmark.1 He ended up making toys which began in a very typi-cal and, at that time, common way: as with craftsmen, he used his leftover material to make toysand simple playthings.2 The production line of the factory changed over the years from toys as aby-product to toys as the main product and in 1934 the firm was therefore renamed LEGO.3

LEGO is the contraction of the Danish words ‘leg godt’, meaning ‘play well’. It was only laterthat they discovered that the word LEGO means in Latin ‘I put together’, an altogether suitablecoincidence. The first wooden toys were produced of timber and they were distributed and soldwithout any packaging. Underneath or on the side of every toy there was a LEGO logo rubber-stamped.4 The LEGO Company kept producing these wooden toys until 1960, when a firedestroyed the storage area for the wooden toys.5 Plastics had already entered the company longbefore. After the Second World War when the German occupation ended, new materials andproduction methods became available in Denmark.

Many toy manufacturers had experimented with the use of various plastics in making toys fromthe First World War onwards. The trade journal Games and Toys shows how throughout the FirstWorld War toy traders struggled with the ban on German toys (for Germany had had the largesttoy industry at the time). There is a constant mention of the shortage of toys and there are somecases described in which ‘Trading with the Enemy’ is harshly punished.6 On this theme there isa one page cover advertisement in Games & Toys of a company called Compocastles. Their adver-tisement reads: ‘THE WAR AND THE TOY TRADE Resolved. You must have BRITISH MADETOYS’.7 Undisputedly, the British toy trade started to flourish because of the ban on German toys.Another problem was the shortage of wood and metal for the toy trade. In January 1915 the Games& Toys magazine reported that in the North of England a firm had ‘a very large quantity of woodin stock’ and that ‘is in the position to supply the trade with wood for the manufacture of woodentoys’.8 Even after the war was over, metal toys were scarce, as Games & Toys reports in January1919. For making tin toys, a substitute called black tin was being used: ‘This material is muchcheaper and is of no practical value for the war industries, so it has been given to the toy manu-facturers.’9 Nevertheless, ‘all manufacturers making lead and metal toys have suffered a greatdeal.’10 Because of these shortages, many toy manufacturers produced and sold plastic toys.

Toymakers were constantly experimenting with new types of plastic that were non-inflamma-ble, cheap and easy to mold. In June 1914, for example, in the first issue of the British toy tradejournal Games & Toys we see on page 15 an advertisement of the company Hagedorn & Co. thatsells various ‘Celluloid Toys’. The problem with celluloid, however, was its inflammability andtherefore it was not considered a suitable material for making children’s toys (or any other objectfor that matter). While it seemed at first that the First World War would call a halt to the flourish-ing toy business, experiments with the use of plastic finally succeeded and the mass productionof toys continued.11 By the mid twentieth century, plastic was used for various products, amongthem toys.

The first type of plastic the LEGO Company used between 1949 and 1963 was Celluloseacetate, but as Jørgensen states, this type of plastic was ‘easily deformed by heat and water andwould undergo slight changes over the years.’12 Thus from 1963 onwards ‘the plastic materialwas changed into acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (short ABS)’.13 This new type of plasticenhanced the quality of the bricks in terms of (1) life endurance, ‘if you had ten- or twenty-year-old LEGO bricks they would fasten perfectly onto a brick you bought yesterday,’ (2) color fast-ness and (3) clutch power, because ABS allowed for more molding precision, the bricks now

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

History and Technology 223

fitted together more tightly and constructions became more stable.14 Nowadays, some articles aremade from PVC plastic.15

The LEGO Company had been making wooden building blocks from the very beginning. Plas-tic was introduced as the basis for construction toys under the direction of Ole’s son Godtfred KirkChristiansen who, at the end of the 1940s introduced his father to the English ‘Windsor’ machine.16

With this machine, plastic could be molded into certain shapes. The machine had cost the companyone fifteenth of the money they made that year but Godtfred was able to convince his father thatthe investment would be worthwhile.17 In 1947 the LEGO Company was the first company inDenmark that owned a plastic injection-molding machine for toy production. The LEGO AutomaticBinding Bricks – the forerunner of the LEGO bricks we know today – were released in 1949. Thesebricks had four or eight studs and came in four different colors. The system that connected the brickswas not based on the stud-and-tube coupling system, as we know it today. The bricks had studson top but no tubes underneath. They had slots to accommodate windows and doors.

Strictly speaking, the LEGO Company did not invent the plastic building brick, they wereinspired by the English ‘Kiddicraft’ Self-Locking Bricks.18 However, none of the official LEGOpublications studied for this article referred to the fact that the idea for plastic interlockingbuilding bricks came not from Ole Kirk or his son Godfredt but from a British child psychologistHilary Harry Fisher Page (1904–1957).19 Among the many toys that Page designed and sold withsuccess in Britain were the Kiddicraft self-locking building bricks (UK patent No. 529580 in1940 for the Kiddicraft Interlocking Building Cube and UK patent No. 633055 in 1949 for theKiddicraft Self-Locking Brick). The article ‘Analysis: astonishing secret behind the world’s mostfamous toy. The ghost that is haunting LEGO land’ by Adrian Lithgow appeared in The Mail onSunday on 26 July 1987. According to The Mail, Godtfred – then 66 years old – stated in court(the case LEGO v. Tyco) that ‘he received sample bricks from a Londoner, Mr Hillary Page, in1947’.20 In Page’s educational book Playtime in the First Five Years we can see indeed picturesof children playing with those plastic building bricks.21 In 1981 the LEGO Company agreed toan ‘out-of-court settlement of 45,000 (British Pounds) for any residual rights of the new ownersof Mr Page’s company, Hestair-Kiddicraft.’22

By 1951 plastic toys accounted for half of the LEGO Company’s output. Despite this fact, theDanish trade magazine Legetøjs-Tidende (Toy-Times) stated at the beginning of the 1950s, afterhaving visited the LEGO factory in Billund, that ‘plastic would never be able to replace good andhonest wooden toys.’23 This outcry demonstrates fittingly how most people felt (and sometimesstill feel) towards the use of plastic in toys.24 LEGO toys, however, seem to be an exception tothe dislike of plastic toys. This might be explained by the fact that Ole Kirk was well aware of thedangers involved in using plastic. In The World of LEGO Toys (1987) we read that Ole Kirk’sethic of the handcrafts man ‘Only the Best Is Good Enough’ was applied to ‘the mass productionof plastic, a material that can lend itself to shoddy work unless care is taken.’25 Further on in thebook it read: ‘Though plastic had a reputation for flimsiness, Ole Kirk sought to bring out the bestin that material.’26 Moreover, when Ole Kirk simply tried to make his wooden toys in plastic, herealized that ‘plastic offered special creative possibilities for toys design.’27 In other words, OleKirk was aware of both the potential dangers and advantages of using plastic. Therefore he seemsto have successfully avoided the pitfalls of this disliked material. ‘Part of Christiansen’s geniuswas to make the new material feel almost as comforting, as domestically reliable, as wood itself.’28

The interlocking mechanism of the LEGO plastic building bricks changed in 1958 to the newand improved stud-and-tube coupling system that is still being used today. This new couplingsystem was facilitated by innovations on the level of plastic molding machines. The new stud-and-tube coupling system consists of studs on top of the bricks and tubes underneath the bricks.If constructions built with the Automatic Binding Bricks were a little unstable, the new systemwas extremely rigid and precise. ‘The “tolerance” – the allowable variation of the diameters of

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

224 M. Lauwaert

studs and tubes – is two-hundredths of a millimeter’ which accounts for more stable construc-tions.29 With this new stud-and-tube coupling system the slots disappeared completely from thebricks (from 1956 onwards, the LEGO Company had been producing bricks with and withoutslots). This meant that the building limits caused by these slots disappeared. The slots narrowedthe design and building options with LEGO bricks because windows and doors had to beintegrated through the system of slots.

The change in prime material used for making the LEGO toys led not only to differentproducts but also to a different interaction of the child with these products. Making plasticconstructional building bricks that could do more than their wooden counterparts was only possi-ble with the development of a certain type of plastic and the accompanying molding machine. Itwould have been very hard indeed to make a coupling system like the one used for plastic LEGObricks, in wood. Plastic pieces clutch better than wooden pieces and can endure more resistance.The transition from wood to plastic changed the way children could and would play with theirbuilding sets. A wooden set of building blocks allows you to make certain constructions (not toohigh, not too many corners in a building, no sloping roof, mainly two-dimensional, etc.) that aredifferent from the ones you can make with plastic building bricks that fit onto one another.Moreover, wooden bricks are especially suited for abstract and architectural constructions.

The 1958 technological innovation in plastic molding machines and the resulting change inLEGO bricks’ interlocking mechanism largely coincided with a transition from LEGO toys asarchitectural toys to LEGO bricks as the basis for many diverse and more wide-ranging construc-tions and with the introduction of the LEGO System of Play. LEGO construction sets from thelate 1940s and most of the 1950s were mainly focused on the construction of houses. The slots inthe LEGO bricks were meant for the incorporation of doors and windows in LEGO constructions(that was the only play option these slots facilitated) – hence the claim that these early LEGO toyswere in essence architectural toys focused on the building of houses.

The emphasis on LEGO toys as architectural toys can be seen in the LEGO interlocking andbuilding mechanism, the sets from the late 1940s and the 1950s, but also in a name change thatwas effectuated in 1952. In 1952 the Automatic Binding Bricks were renamed LEGO Mursten(Danish word for ‘brick’). In Danish there are two words for bricks – a more neutral Danish wordfor bricks would be ‘klodser.’30 The choice for Mursten reflects the emphasis on architecturalmodels and on ‘using LEGO bricks for house building.’31 The word ‘mursten,’ ‘bausteine’ or‘bricks’ features on the LEGO boxes throughout the 1950s. From the mid 1950s onwards thisword is supplemented with the word ‘System,’ because the LEGO Company launched its LEGOSystem i Leg or LEGO System of Play in 1955. The word ‘mursten’ gradually disappears fromLEGO packages by the end of the 1950s.

The slots disappeared as well from the LEGO bricks. Thanks to the new stud-and-tubecoupling system, constructions built with LEGO bricks became more stable and the need for theslots that would accommodate windows and doors disappeared. How and what one could buildwith LEGO bricks multiplied dramatically. The new stud-and-tube coupling system thus changedthe potential of the LEGO bricks immensely. The first LEGO bricks were ‘rather limited’ in theiruse, ‘you could only fit them together in a limited amount of ways.’32 ‘It was the tubes that gavethe product its versatility and building stability.’33 When in 1958 the constructions became morestable with the new coupling system in use, one could build far larger and detailed objects suchas cars, planes, boats and houses. Because you no longer had to build your construction aroundthe slots that would accommodate windows and doors, there was more freedom in where to putthe doors and windows and there could be more of them in one construction.

The System of Play added to this increasing LEGO ‘geography’ of play. The play systemoriginally consisted of 28 sets and eight vehicles plus some supplementary elements. The ideabehind the System of Play was that not only the individual bricks were interchangeable but the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

History and Technology 225

sets as well. Meaning that everything bought from LEGO would go with everything else. Allpieces in the system had to be compatible so that a ‘child who has four LEGO sets can use themall together to create more complex and interesting playthings than he could with four sets thatdidn’t work together.’34 Thereby players could design and construct more and would want moreelements of the LEGO play system. Instead of the child having a multitude of individual toys, theSystem of Play allowed children to combine all the LEGO toys that belonged to the System.35

The System of Play and its interchangeability of LEGO pieces also changed how children couldplay with their LEGO toys, because it, too, multiplied the building and construction possibilitiesenormously.

The 1958 molding machine not only generated changes in the practice of play through thenew stud-and-tube coupling system but also through the fact that this new machine could producedifferent shapes and small, detailed articles such as hairdos and helmets, flowers and in timewalky-talkies. Starting with just two sizes of bricks, the LEGO Company in 2004 produced12,400 different pieces that would make far more detailed and realistic constructions. A goodexample in this case is the LEGO mini figure introduced in 1978. Before, people and animalswere constructed out of bricks. With the launch of the mini figurines, people and animals becamepreformed and pre-shaped. While you can still change some parts of the figurines you buy today,they differ immensely from the idea of building figures from scratch. These old figures were bigand static – the mini-figures, however, could move their head, arms, hands and legs and weremore easily integrated into a construction.

We could state that the change in prime material from wood to plastics and the technologi-cal innovations on the level of molding plastic, expanded the LEGO play practices because themodular, plastic bricks and the detailed articles facilitated the design and creation of morediverse constructions than the wooden building blocks. The area for spontaneous playerbehavior, enlarged as well through these material changes in LEGO construction toys becausebricks were still fairly generic and would allow for the creation of many personal ideas. TheLEGO bricks with their specific stud-and-tube interlocking system as we still know themtoday, facilitated thus a broader area of play options. The System of Play ensured that allLEGO elements would go together, thereby opening up a large area for spontaneous construc-tions. Moreover, it was not until the 1970s that detailed manuals would be included inside theLEGO boxes. These detailed manuals would outline all the facilitated play options, step bystep. Before the 1970s, LEGO sets only came with building advice, playing advice and ideas.However, the real break in the increasing LEGO play practices did not occur with moredetailed manuals used from the 1970s onwards. It was the period between the late 1990s andthe early twenty-first century that marked a clear break in LEGO policies and consequentlyLEGO play practices.

Brand extension through product differentiation

At the end of the 1990s, ‘a declining interest in construction play, the phenomenon known asKGOY (Kids Growing Older Younger) that has kids from ever earlier ages turn away from tradi-tional toys, and technological developments that made LEGO sets look boring and old fashioned,’pushed the LEGO Company into a plan to extend its brand through diversifying its product rangein order to ‘extend their brand into new areas of the children’s universe’.36 At the core of theLEGO Company’s strategy was the extension of their brand beyond the connotation of the‘brick’. An analysis in 1996 of the strength of the LEGO brand, through the Brand Asset Valuator(BAV) test, by the advertising agency Young & Rubican had grim consequences. The BAV testis commonly used to research and analyze the weaknesses, strengths, popularity and reputationof brands. Overall, the BAV test results showed that the LEGO brand was still going strong but

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

226 M. Lauwaert

scored low on the point of differentiation, which is, according to the BAV system, usually a signof a fading brand.37

According to Celia Lury in Brands: the logos of the global economy (2004) a ‘brandprogresses or emerges in a series of loops, an ongoing process of (product) differentiation and(brand) integration,’ which again shows us the importance of differentiation in relation tobrands.38 In what is now considered by LEGO employees as an overreaction to the BAVoutcome, the LEGO Company pushed ahead with their plans for brand extension to completionwithin a few years. Repairing the damage this did to their brand will take 7 years according to the‘rescue’ strategy that was put into motion in 2004. From the mid 1990s onwards, as part of thebrand extension strategy, new types of toys and life style products were launched, LEGOLANDtheme parks opened, electronic games and children’s media produced.39

The differentiation of LEGO products has been going on for decades but the rate and paceincreased exponentially from the mid-1990s onwards. This can be discerned through looking atthe categories the company used in, for example, 1979 and 2005 to classify its products. In 1979,the LEGO Company divided its assortment of toys into a fairly simply set of just three differentgroups of products: construction toys, Duplo and other LEGO brands.40 Nowadays, the LEGOproducts are on the one hand classified in age terms and on the other hand in terms of playpractices. At the LEGO online store there are six different main categories that are all of themsubdivided into different categories and subcategories resulting in a grand total of more than70 categories. We can also reveal this differentiation by looking at the Nuremberg Annual ToyFair catalogues that are published yearly since 1950 and are a rich source for analyzing theEuropean toy industry. The fair started in the 1950s with a modest 17 different toy categories.This simple set of categories changed over the 55 years the fair has been taking place into anextremely complex, 20 pages long system of categories and subcategories that are so specializedthat some of these subcategories only have one retailer listed. At the beginning, LEGO toys wereclassified under the category ‘non-mechanical toys of metal and plastic’.41 From 1964 onwards,the LEGO Company was mentioned in various categories because the products they promoted atthe fair were increasingly diverse and the system of categorization used as an organizing principlefor the fair diversified as well. In 1986, for example, the LEGO Company is mentioned under‘Model construction (technical kits),’ ‘Hobbycrafts (arts), painting and modelling kits,’‘Construction kits,’ ‘Different kinds of toys for babies and young children.’42 In 1992 the physi-cal structure of the toy fair changed when an immense new showroom was built. This influencedthe categorization of the different retailers and their products: the ‘multiple trade groups’ weremoved to this new hall, among them the LEGO Company.43

In short, the goal was to replace the ‘assembly’ aspect of the LEGO brand (which was consid-ered too old-fashioned and not flexible enough in light of the intended product diversification)with the core term ‘creativity.’ The slogan became ‘Just Imagine …’. Ironically – and this is whatdid the brand such damage and caused heavy financial losses – the new toys and products wereanything but creative. LEGO products had never been so anti-creative than at the turn of themillennium. Play was being ‘blackboxed’ and players did not like it. LEGO sets increasinglyconsisted of pre-formed parts that at once limited the amount of time needed to build a set andthe amount of other constructions one could build with the pieces inside the box. Both on thefacilitated level of playing and the spontaneous level of playing, opportunities decreased as aresult of the preformed elements. The change towards more preformed LEGO pieces and theresulting decrease in time spent building was in line with the strategy to loosen the ties betweenthe LEGO brand and the bricks as construction elements.

On the level of actual toys that were produced during these years, we can discern a shift fromconstruction play as the core play activity with LEGO toys to narrative and role-playing. Up tillthe mid 1990s, the company was best known for the making of construction toys and the LEGO

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

History and Technology 227

brand was almost exclusively associated with this type of toy. The core of construction play liesin the process, the building and constructing of something rather than the product, the playingwith that construction; ‘the journey not the destination is the purpose – process over product.’44

For example, once you have finished a Meccano construction, the playing is over because theelement of play lies in the construction process itself and the finished product is more or lessstatic. The LEGO toys introduced between the late 1990s and the early twenty-first century hada more simplified building process/construction part and focused heavily on the playing with theconstruction once it was finished. Toys that centered on stories and themes allowed both for thedevelopment of more diverse products that did not necessarily have the brick and constructionplay at its basis (product differentiation) and the integration of the product with other media andother areas of the child’s world (brand integration).

These toys combined the practice of construction play with an altogether different practice ofplay that can be compared to the playing with dolls, action figures or a dollhouse. It is a practiceof play that centers on narrative, role-playing, action, adventure and fantasy. More often than not,these narratives were tied to other media products such as films, television programs, comics, orcomputer games. Although older LEGO toys were also about role-playing and narrative play –playing at being a little engineer or a housewife during the 1940s and 1950s for example, and aspace invader or pirate during the 1960s and 1970s – the roles these toys offered were more orless limited and were often in accordance with the everyday reality both in terms of what youcould build and narrative content.45 In contrast, the narrative and themed LEGO toys on sale fromthe mid 1990s onwards offered more diverse and wide-ranging roles to play, the range ofavailable narratives grew extensively and these roles and narratives were more often than not‘otherworldly.’ The ‘engineer-hero’ was largely replaced with media-heroes of the Westernconsumer culture such as Harry Potter, Bob the Builder, Anakin, and Batman.46 Importantly,role-playing became facilitated and intended during the mid 1990s, it replaced construction playat the core of LEGO play.

However, the extreme financial losses in the years 2000, 2003 and 2004 made clear that thebrand extension through product differentiation had not been successfully executed. The financiallosses were blamed on different things, such as the production of new media inspired toys (e.g.computer games) that were not the LEGO Company’s area of expertise;47 expensive licensingagreements with, for example, Disney; high production costs; and extreme and undirected prod-uct differentiation that led to a diffuse brand image or a discrepancy between what Lury calls the‘concrete and abstract’ aspects of a brand, that is, its products and the world that it stands for.48

Products are, according to Lury, the things that make the abstract brand concrete and the brandimage becomes diffuse when the concrete and abstract dimensions of a brand do not coincide(p. 9). A diffuse brand image makes a brand vulnerable: ‘brands are vulnerable to publiccriticism, in particular when the press is able to reveal discrepancies between the brand’sproclaimed values and ideas and the company’s actual behavior’.49 Such discrepancies werebetween the proclaimed creativity of LEGO products and the actual LEGO products that wereanything but creative.

These financial and brand image problems prompted the LEGO Company in 2004 to announceand put into process a 7-year revitalizing strategy. Some of the measures to get the company backon its feet are reversing in part the differentiation by selling off or outsourcing certain LEGO divi-sions such as the software division, clothing line and LEGO theme parks.50 Product lines that do‘not directly tie in with the core business of the LEGO group’ or are ‘less profitable’ (such asLEGO BABY, LEGO QUATRO and LEGO CLIKITS) will be or are already cancelled.51 Also,development times will be halved so that the company is able to react to changes in the toy marketfaster (12 months instead of 24 months for developing new products).52 The amount of uniqueLEGO parts has been reduced from 12,400 to around 7000.53 The classic construction toys were

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

228 M. Lauwaert

re-established in 2005 as one of the LEGO Company’s core product lines.54 A more flexible orga-nizational structure will allow for faster reactions to consumer feedback and the changing toymarket.55 Importantly, up to 80% of production will be outsourced to reduce production, packingand distribution costs.56 Finally, closer contact with retailers and consumers should allow for thecreation of better products and the successful re-establishment of the brand.57 Thus far, the strat-egy seems to be paying off. In 2005 the LEGO Company announced that the ‘LEGO Group is onthe right track’ with a net profit of DKK 505 million (US$112 million).58 In 2006, the net profithad almost tripled to DKK 1430 million (US$291 million).59

Concerning the ‘establishment of a strong core business with classic construction toys’ wecan indeed see a change in LEGO products since 2005 with an increase in toys that are more inline with traditional construction play. Most notably are the product lines LEGO CreativeBuilding, LEGO Creator (with digital and non-digital components), LEGO Digital Designer,www.LEGOFactory.com, the retro buckets of bricks with their Book of Ideas and older lines suchas LEGO Technic and Mindstorms. Part of the financial success in 2006 was due to theunexpected good sales of ‘re-launched, classic product lines such as LEGO City, LEGO DUPLO,LEGO MINDSTORMS and LEGO TECHNIC.’60 The return to the bricks, to the classicconstruction toys does not mean that popular LEGO lines that are themed and mediated, thatcenter on narrative play with a construction rather than on construction play, will disappear.Rather, it means that the LEGO Company will keep a better balance ‘between the classic linesand more ‘fad-driven’ products’.61

We can conclude that both areas of play – facilitated and spontaneous – shrunk during theperiod of brand extension through product differentiation. As such, these toys were not more butless creative. Reasons for these shrinking areas of play were the fact that many of the new prod-ucts were not compatible with the System of Play; these toys frustrated the modular and thusexpansive, open-ended forms of LEGO play. Some of these products simply contained no bricks(e.g. LEGO CLIKITS). Pre-fabricated elements were sometimes only useful in the context of onesingle LEGO set. Other sets were so specific in terms of narrative that combining them with othersets seemed unthinkable. Crucially, because of the intended shift away from being a constructiontoy brand, these LEGO toys were not so much about designing and constructing your designs.The narrative and role-playing elements that had to fill this gap did not suffice. Both facilitatedand spontaneous play practices suffered under these late 1990s/early twenty-first centurydecisions because the products were more hermetically sealed, less modular and open-ended,leaving little room for designing personal constructions and realizing them.

Although we can still see some of these same playground-shrinking elements in currentLEGO sets (Belville LEGO for girls contains non-brick elements and LEGO Harry Potter andLEGO Star Wars are from another symbolic universe), they are less dominant and better balancedagainst LEGO products that reinforce the System of Play. Importantly, most contemporarythemed and narrative LEGO toys leave ample room for designing and constructing.

Bringing the fans into the company

Crucially, the company’s future growth and restoration is outlined in the 2006 Annual Reportas being based on two major assets: ‘the classic LEGO products’ and the ‘unique possibilitiesprovided by the close contacts to the users.’62 Having dealt with the first in the previoussection, this part will investigate initiatives to establish close contact with users. At the core ofthe LEGO Company’s revitalizing strategy is the development of stakeholder relations, withconsumers at the very top. I will focus here on the ‘cooperation with the company’s many fans’and especially in relation to Mindstorms 2.0 (launched in 1998) and Mindstorms NXT(launched in 2006).63

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

History and Technology 229

Of the first LEGO Mindstorms edition (2.0) – a set of computational LEGO bricks that allowyou to create your own robots – almost 1 million sets were sold (at US$199 per set).64 Theongoing popularity of Mindstorms 2.0 prompted the LEGO Company to develop a second editionof the robotics construction toy (NXT). One of the goals was to appeal not only to adults but tochildren as well. Mindstorms 2.0 is a toy with a specific (adult) user embedded in its use of tech-nology and its requirements on both the financial and computational level. Apparently, 70% ofMindstorms 2.0 users are adults.65 With Mindstorms NXT (US$249.99 per set) the LEGOCompany wants to broaden the scope of possible users through simplifying the programminglanguage and including less bricks (200 to be precise).66 At the Nuremberg toy fair January 2006NXT was awarded the Innovation Award 2006 in the category Technical Innovation. TheMindstorms NXT consists of an Apple iPod look-alike ‘Intelligent Brick’ (a 32-bit LEGO micro-processor). Its sensor capabilities are ultrasound, sound, light and touch. The new system is PCand Mac compatible, the programming software is redesigned and now far more intuitive andeasier to use. Players from age 10 upwards should be able to complete a robot in 30 minutes (asopposed to 1.5–2 hours with Mindstorms 2.0.). The robot has a USB port and the use of Bluetoothtechnology means you can control your creation remotely, e.g. from a mobile phone or PDA.Overall, the robots look and act more realistically and can perform more complex tasks, such asreacting to voice commands.67

However, the most interesting thing about the new Mindstorms kit has been its developingprocess, which could be characterized as a process of opening the black box and letting playerslook inside and even meddle with it. ‘The boldest part … is Lego’s decision to outsource itsinnovation to a panel of citizen developers’ hoping that this ‘will lead not only to a better productbut also a tighter, more trusting bond between corporation and customer.’68 Four dedicated Mind-storms users – which Eric von Hippel refers to as ‘lead users’ in Democratizing Innovation – hadbeen selected by the LEGO Company and invited to form a Mindstorms User Panel (MUP) tohelp the company with the design of the next generation Mindstorms.69 In other words, Mind-storms NXT was co-designed by Mindstorms lead users. Lead users are not only quick in adopt-ing new products (by buying them), but importantly, also in adapting these products so that theymight better fit their personal needs. Hippel defines lead users as either persons or companies thatare at the edges of market trends and therefore experience needs that others will soon experienceas well. More so, lead users innovate products because they anticipate a relatively high benefitfrom this (personally, business-wise or financially).70 Lead users adopting and adaptingMindstorms was not new, Mindstorms 2.0 has known a vibrant and innovative user communityfrom the very start. The LEGO Company tapping into the lead user community and user-driveninnovations, however, was new. Hippel sees a trend in companies increasingly preferring ‘user-centered innovation processes’ over a ‘manufacturer-centric innovation development system’ notin the least because ‘computing and communication technologies improve.’71 This strengthensuser communities, allows them to help each other more easily (‘user-to-user assistance’), facili-tates fast and easy distribution of innovations and as such increases the importance of user-driveninnovations for the companies.72

The Mindstorms community has always been active and has, through the hacking and modi-fications ‘done far more to add value to Lego’s robotics kit than the company itself.’73 The freeuser-developed software to program your Mindstorms robot NQC (stands for Not Quite C) is agood example of this. Created by David Baum this software is very popular among Mindstormsusers because it allows you to manipulate your robot through typing the programming code ratherthan through dropping and dragging the virtual blocks on your screen and because it allows formore diversity and flexibility. At first unsure how to deal with these hackers, the LEGO Companydecided that limiting creativity was against its corporate ideology so it gradually warmed to the‘open source ethos’ and wrote a permission to hack in the license agreement.74 More so, the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

230 M. Lauwaert

‘hackers were providing a valuable service’ because they make the product more exciting andenhanced the experience with a basic Mindstorms set (without getting paid for it).75 Mindstormsfans and users have also written numerous books and manuals, both online and printed copies, onrobot building.

By tapping into the culture of user-driven innovations, the LEGO Company also wished tochange its marketing strategy from the traditional commandeering marketing strategy to a collab-orative, viral marketing strategy.76 This seemed to work, when the word got out that Mindstormsfans were sitting at the table with LEGO officials to design NXT, the Internet buzz seemedunstoppable.

This strategy to draw on user-created content to improve products and create a solid fan baseand loyal community is common among computer game developers but new to the LEGOCompany that has a rich history of lawsuits against companies or persons unlawfully using theirproducts or brand. Contrary to most game developer companies who leak information and some-times software code about a game as soon as possible to generate a buzz, the LEGO Companyopted for secrecy among the MUP until an approved prototype was ready for the ‘big bang.’77

Again in line with the production process of computer games, the LEGO Company then asked for100 beta testers who would be able to buy a pre-release of the product at a discounted price inreturn for four months of heavy tinkering and providing the company with feedback. There aretwo sides to the so-called open source ethos: (1) creating better products with the input of peoplewho are willing to spend a lot of time on your product without being paid for it and (2) generatinga community and goodwill among future consumers. An often-heard critique on user-driveninnovations, on bringing the users into the company, on tapping into the ‘many-to-many’community, is the ‘free labor’ critique. Soren Lund, LEGO Mindstorms Product & MarketingDevelopment Director, remarks in an interview with Joel Greenberg that this free labor is notnecessarily cheap to tap into for companies because a lot of the company’s energy and resourcesare invested in working with user communities.78 More importantly, it is exactly the fact thatusers are not being paid to co-design a new product that makes this system work, according toLund. Paying users would reallocate them from the communities’ ‘can culture’ to the companies’‘must culture.’79

A distinction to be made here is between adults and children. The consumers that the LEGOCompany involved in the development process of Mindstorms NXT are all adults and they havebeen known to be the most active group of Mindstorms users. The gap between the LEGOCompany and children is targeted through (mainly web-based) initiatives such as thewww.LEGOFactory.com, competitions, forums, exclusive membership advantages and a moreindividualized shopping experience both online and in stores (pick and choose your own bricksinstead of buying pre-assembled sets). The latter is referred to by LEGO as a ‘“branded” purchaseexperience in the LEGO stores.’80

A very important aspect of the strategy of bringing the fans into the company and tapping intotheir creative potentials is community building, providing a fertile basis for the user communitiesto thrive on. LEGO Factory is one such a tool (and so are the competitions, exhibitions, buildingevents and official websites for product series where users can create their own websites sportingtheir own designs). Concerning LEGO Factory, it is important to note that such digital designtools have already existed within the adult user community for a long time. LEGO Factory allowsyou to build your own designs with the free LEGO Digital Designer software.81 LEGO fans havebeen using Computer Aided Design programs, such as Ldraw, SimLego, LeoCAD, Bricksmith,BrickDraw3D or MLCAD since the mid 1990s.82 These programs were created by users and arestill preferred over LEGO Digital Designer by many users because they have more viewingoptions, colors, bricks and design flexibility.83 This is not entirely surprising since LEGO DigitalDesigner is targeted at children and new users.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

History and Technology 231

Two other examples of community building and ‘bringing the fans into the company’ are theLEGO Ambassador Program and the LEGO Certified Professionals program.84

The Ambassador Programme is an official programme which invites adult LEGO fans to share theirenthusiasm for the LEGO idea and LEGO products and encourages interaction in the global LEGOcommunities. Moreover, the LEGO Certified Professionals programme caters for adult fans who,wholly or partly, live by their LEGO hobby and therefore wish to enter into cooperation with theLEGO Group.85

The guidelines and rules for being a part of these programs are rather specific. In the FAQ list onthe Ambassador program we read:

All LEGO Ambassadors members are expected to exemplify the program fundamentals of buildingproficiency, enthusiasm, and professionalism towards the public, other fans, the LEGO communityand the LEGO group. In addition, LEGO Ambassadors members agree to be active contributors tothe LEGO world-wide community by:

Contributing regularly to online discussions

Participate in local user groups, or help to start one in the local area

Advise new fans just joining the hobby.86

Being a LEGO Ambassador does not cost money but only a few people are selected each year.Joining the LEGO Certified Professionals program costs US$1000 a year but more people canapply for this title.87

These explicit attempts at establishing an active user community might seem a bit forced(when compared with computer game communities that pride themselves for being independentand unendorsed) and considering the fact that active LEGO communities have been thriving fora very long time. Nevertheless, the design of Mindstorms NXT, just as the technological innova-tions from the 1940s and the 1950s, resulted in a toy that facilitates imaginative, open-ended playthat fosters not only the facilitated play options but spontaneous and unintended play practices aswell. More so, the LEGO Company seems to realize that the best ideas for new products are likelyto be found within the spontaneous play practices of dedicated fans, in the user-driven ‘canculture’. In the same manner that recent classic construction LEGO sets re-focus on design, withMindstorms the LEGO Company has put designing as play practice at the front.

One of the advantages of an active user community is invaluable feedback about the productsbeing used by these users. In the 2006 LEGO annual report, this feedback is referred to as‘unique’ and ‘extremely significant’ knowledge ‘of the wishes and needs of the users.’88 Thisknowledge is used in both the development and the marketing of new LEGO products. Closingthe gap between company and consumer through loops of feedback is a means to include theconsumer in the magic circle that is a brand and to keep that brand vital. As Lury puts it: ‘the aimof the feedback processes in which information about competitors and the consumer is fed backinto production is to make the brand itself dynamic.’89 By spending money on a certain productyou ‘are paying for a relationship with and participation in a brand.’90 By including the consum-ers in the design of Mindstorms NXT, by shortening production processes so as to be able to reactfaster to changing trends, the LEGO Company tries to re-establish its brand as dynamic and vitaland it tries to institute a participatory relationship with the consumer.

Importantly, these strategies do also imply that spontaneous play practices are incorporatedin the facilitated play practices. This blurs the lines between player and consumer, between playerand producer and between producer and consumer. As Hippel states, ‘consumer’ is too passive aterm for lead users who are actively involved in innovation processes.91 Both players andconsumers (insofar as these two stakeholder positions can still be disentangled from each otherin the sense that almost every player is by necessity also a consumer) can become co-producers,

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

232 M. Lauwaert

either directly through, for example, being invited to partake in design processes or indirectlysince online communities have never been so easy to monitor, take part in, lurk in and learnfrom.92 However, because the spontaneous player activities is supported by a play system that ismodular in form and open-ended in use, the incorporation of spontaneous play activities into thefacilitated play activities does not result in a shrinking playground. By tapping into the ‘canculture’ of user innovations, the LEGO Company has opened up the core to the users and hasmade the step from a manufacturer driven innovation culture to a user driven innovation culture.Players gladly work for free for the LEGO Company and give up their creative rights for othersto earn money with. The strict rules for LEGO Ambassadors indicates that the LEGO Companymight have opened its doors to lead users, it still controls and demands of its ambassadors thatthey symbolize and represent the moral, values and norms of the LEGO Company. Importantly,not only are the fans invited to sit at the table with LEGO designers to help design new products,LEGO employees increasingly venture outside of the company by taking part in user groups andposting on fan-sites, by data mining personal websites and fan community databases, by announc-ing new products and programs on private initiative websites.

Conclusion

This article deals with different aspects related to changing LEGO toys. One important aspect ofthis article is how changing means of production have influenced actual LEGO toys. By changingthe means of production I refer to the 1940s change from wood to plastics, the 1950s change inplastic molding machines, and the twenty-first century strategy of bringing LEGO fans into theLEGO Company – either directly through making them part of design teams or ambassadorprograms or indirectly through tapping into the online (user groups, chatrooms, fansites, etc.) andoffline (brick events, building events, etc.) fan culture. A second important aspect deals with thequestion of how these changing toys influence changing practices of play. We have seen how thenew stud-and-tube coupling system and the LEGO System of Play broadened up both the facili-tated and spontaneous play activities with LEGO. This broad and expanding playground wasunder duress during the late 1990s and early twenty-first century because of an unfortunateattempt at extending the LEGO brand into other areas of the child’s universe. Product diversifi-cation and changes to the System of Play during those years led to a shrinking area of bothfacilitated and spontaneous LEGO play. Financial losses and a weakening brand image promptedthe LEGO Company to set into motion a seven-year strategy to restore the LEGO brand. Thisstrategy was based on two primary assets: refocusing on the LEGO brick and construction playand establishing a substantial relationship with the core user. In recent years, we can see how thestrategy is paying off not only in financial terms but also in terms of a return to a broad andexpansive area for LEGO play, both on the facilitated and spontaneous level.

Although this overview of changing practices of play might suggest that as at 2007, theproblems of where the company went astray have ended and that it has returned to LEGO toysand LEGO play as in the second half of the twentieth century, this is not the case, for significantchanges have taken firm root. One of these is the increase in themed and media-related LEGOsets. The roles and heroes children can relate to when playing with LEGO toys have increasedexponentially from engineer, architect, housefather or housewife in the 1950s and early 1960s towizard, space explorer, police agent, princess, and the likes.

The most important change in recent years, however, is the strategy of bringing fans into thecompany, for tapping into the user-driven innovative fan culture and ‘can culture’. This changemarks a crucial shift in the design of new products, in the marketing of new products, and in deal-ing with the key stakeholders: the players. More so, in adapting to the ‘many-to-many’ culture ofuser communities in terms of design, production and marketing, the focus is increasingly on

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

History and Technology 233

adults. Adults used to be portrayed and envisioned primarily as supervisors or helping hands tochildren’s play, nowadays adults are considered a unique and extremely important source of valu-able information. What the LEGO Company is losing in the age bracket between 7 and 17 due tothe KGOY (kids growing older younger) development, they are gaining in the age bracketbetween 17 and 47 as a result of the ASYL (adults staying younger longer) trend. Many adultLEGO players have gained in importance because they sustain and keep vital the ‘can culture’that businesses increasingly tap into for designing and marketing their products.

Players increasingly become not only consumers but also producers. This blurring andmingling of different stakeholder positions might be perceived as the ultimate empowerment ofconsumers now that they are invited to co-design new commodities. However, the power hold-ers are unmistakably those deciding to consent to this boundary blurring for the sake of a healthybrand and prosperous company. There are then two sides to playing outside of the box, on theone hand it allows for more diverse and wide-ranging practices of LEGO play but on the otherhand these practices of play are being used as input for new and future developments therebydebunking the spontaneous.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions on the firstversion of this article.

Notes

1. LEGO, Timeline Online.2. LEGO, 50 Years of Play, 13.3. Hansen, Grote Zakensuccessen, 16.4. LEGO, 50 Years of Play, 15.5. Hansen, Grote Zakensuccessen, 31.6. Anonymous, ‘The Press and the Toy Trade,’ 228.7. Compocastles, ‘The War and the Toy Trade,’ 123.8. Anonymous, ‘Transfers for the Toy Trade,’ 280.9. Anonymous, ‘Toy Industry in Germany,’ 246.

10. Ibid.11. McClary, Toys with Nine Lives, 35.12. Jørgensen, ‘The Lego Brick System,’ 6.13. Ibid.14. Geis, The World of Lego, 67; Pickering, The Ultimate Lego, 14.15. Jørgensen, ‘The Lego Brick System,’ 6.16. Hansen, Grote Zakensuccessen, 8.17. LEGO, Timeline Online.18. Hansen, Grote Zakensuccessen, 19-21.19. Although his middle name might suggest otherwise, Hilary Fisher Page is not the founder of the toy

brand Fisher Price. Herman Fisher, Irving Price and Helen Schelle founded Fisher Price in 1930.20. Lithgow, ‘Analysis: Astonishing Secret.’21. Page, Playtime, 51, 79, and 115.22. Lithgow, ‘Analysis: Astonishing Secret.’23. Hansen, Grote Zakensuccessen, 22.24. The critique on plastic toys was voiced by the elite rather than by the consumers themselves. The semi-

otic theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980) was one of many to object to plastic toys. In 1957 he states:‘Current toys are made of a graceless material, the product of chemistry, not of nature. Many are nowmolded from complicated mixtures; the plastic material of which they are made has an appearance atonce gross and hygienic, it destroys all the pleasure, the sweetness, the humanity of touch’ (Barthes,Mythologies, 54). Plastic has been met with both liking and disliking. On the one hand, consumers aregenerally happy with the cheap, easy to clean, colorful and (generally speaking) durable plastic

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

234 M. Lauwaert

products. On the other hand, plastic is easily associated with artificiality, superficiality and fakeness, asopposed to wood. For a more detailed plea for wooden toys, see for example Debik, ‘Holz spielt mit.’

25. Geis, The World of Lego, 17.26. Ibid., 45.27. Ibid., 46.28. Lane, ‘The Joy of Bricks,’ 4.29. Geis, The World of Lego, 67.30. Jørgensen, ‘The Lego Brick System,’ 6.31. Ibid.32. LEGO, Heden En Verleden, 2.33. Geis, The World of Lego, 50.34. Ibid., 57.35. Pickering, The Ultimate Lego, 12.36. Gjøl-Andersen & Karmark, ‘Corporate Brand Stretch,’ 167. Increasingly and from an earlier age

onwards, children fancy technological gadgets (cell phones, MP3 players and personal computers) orlifestyle products (clothes, make-up, accessories) rather than toys. In an article by Erika Kinetz, thistrend is confirmed by examples of toy manufacturers who distance themselves from toys. They are notjust selling toys but something more because toys have become painfully unfashionable. Traditional toymakers state that they are in the business of gifts, the family entertainment business, or they simply dropthe T word from their company’s name (Kinetz, ‘Putting Away Childish Things,’ 16). On the other endof the spectrum we could situate the adults staying younger longer (ASYL) trend or the Peter Pansyndrome.

37. Gjøl-Andersen, ‘The Internal Dimensions,’ 163. On the webpage of Young & Rubican differentiationis defined as: ‘Differentiation Drives Successful Brands. Differentiation is the foundation of a brand’sexistence and is critical to brand success. Successful brands are strongly differentiated. The moredifferentiated, the more likely it will be trialed and less likely it is to be substituted. Differentiationmeasures the strength of the brand’s meaning. Consumer choice, brand essence and potential margin areall driven by Differentiation’ (http://www.brandassetvaluator.com.au/).

38. Lury, Brands, 8.39. Concerning gender specific LEGO toys, it is important to note that from 1965 onwards, LEGO produced

toys that were gender and age specific. Before 1965, LEGO products were not targeted at specific ageor gender groups. The first LEGO sub-brand was LEGO Duplo, for younger children. Followed byLEGO Technic for older boys.

40. LEGO, Heden En Verleden, 3.41. Spielwarenmesse, Catalogus Internationale, 1959, 233.42. Spielwarenmesse, Catalogus Internationale, 1986, 358.43. Spielwarenmesse, Catalogus Internationale, 1992, 403.44. Mollerup, Collapsible, 77.45. See Carroll Pursell, ‘The Long Summer’ for a detailed study on construction toys and engineering for

boys.46. Hjarvard, ‘Brand New Toys,’ 7; Hjarvard, ‘From Bricks to Bytes,’ 60.47. Most computer games produced by the LEGO Company have not been successful. The LEGO Star

Wars computer games however were a big hit with millions of copies sold. The reason for this successmight well be the fact that – ‘in accordance with the LEGO Group’s strategy of focusing on core prod-ucts’, the development of this game was outsourced to a more experienced company (LEGO, AnnualReport, 8).

48. Lury, Brands, 5.49. Hjarvard, ‘Brand New Toys,’ 8.50. Ekman, ‘Lego Braces,’ 11.51. LEGO, Annual Report 2005, 11; LEGO, Annual Report 2006, 16.52. LEGO, Annual Report 2004, 8.53. Koerner, ‘Geeks in Toyland.’54. LEGO, Annual Report 2005, 20.55. Ibid., 14.56. LEGO, Annual Report 2006, 14.57. LEGO, Annual Report 2005, 12.58. Ibid., 5-6.59. LEGO, Annual Report 2006, 1.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

History and Technology 235

60. Ibid., 7.61. LEGO, Annual Report 2005, 10.62. LEGO, Annual Report 2006, 19.63. Simonsen, ‘Lego Press Release.’64. Mindstorms was developed in close contact with the MIT Epistemology and Learning Group founded

by Seymour Papert. It is named after his book, Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and PowerfulIdeas. In 1985 the LEGO Company started working together with Papert ‘with an eye toward introduc-ing a computer-driven LEGO product’ (Geis, The World of Lego, 102). Papert is the founding father ofthe educational theory constructionism (‘learning-by-making’), based on the work by Swiss philosopherand psychologist Jean Piaget (Papert and Harel, Constructionism, 1). Mitchel Resnick became theLEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research in 1999. Resnick’s MIT research group ‘LifelongKindergarten’ has recently launched the PICO Cricket Kit, financially backed by the LEGO Company,which is not so much about robot building but about creating computerized designs going from signingbirthday cakes to meowing cats.

65. Koerner, ‘Geeks in Toyland.’66. Ibid.67. Ibid.68. Ibid.69. Ibid.70. Von Hippel, Democratizing Innovation, 22.71. Ibid., 1 and 121.72. Ibid., 105.73. Koerner, ‘Geeks in Toyland.’74. Ibid.75. Ibid.76. Greenberg, ‘Interview with Soren Lund.’77. Koerner, ‘Geeks in Toyland.’78. Greenberg, ‘Interview with Soren Lund.’79. Ibid.; Jenkins, ‘From a “Must Culture”.’80. LEGO, Annual Report 2006, 18.81. LEGO Digital Designer is not the first digital LEGO software program however; LEGO Creator and

LEGO CAD preceded it. LEGO Creator is still on sale but LEGO CAD was a flop.82. Eriksson, SimLego; Jessiman, LDraw; Lachmann, MLCAD; Olson, BrickDraw3D; Smith, Bricksmith;

Zide, LeoCAD.83. LOWLUG, Lego Factory.84. McKee, ‘Announcing Lego.’85. LEGO, Annual Report 2005, 12.86. LEGO, Ambassadors Program.87. LEGO, Certified Professionals Program.88. LEGO, Annual Report 2006, 18.89. Lury, Brands, 3.90. Ibid., 3.91. Von Hippel, Democratizing Innovation, 19.92. Lurkers are people who read discussions on fansites, chatsites and the likes without actively participat-

ing in these discussions. Most forms of lurking are considered bad netiquette (contraction of ‘network’and ‘etiquette’) and lurkers or non-participants are therefore not popular.

References

Anon. ‘The Press and the Toy Trade. Trading with the Enemy.’ Games & Toys 1, no. 6 (1914).———. ‘Toy Industry in Germany.’ Games & Toys 5, no. 54 (1919).———. ‘Transfers for the Toy Trade. Wood for the Toy Trade.’ Games & Toys 1, no. 7 (1915).Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. London: Vintage, 1993 (originally published 1957).Compocastles. ‘The War and the Toy Trade Resolved.’ Games & Toys 1, no. 4 (1914).Debik, K. ‘Holz spielt mit. Erinnerungen an Baukästen aus sächischen Gebirgen und ein Plädoyer für

Holz.’ In Legen, stecken, schrauben – spielend bauen. Begleitschrift zur Ausstellung des Industriemu-seums Chemnitz gemeinsam mit dem Deutschen Spielemuseum e.V. vom 15. November 1998 bis zum31. Januar 1999, edited by J. Feldkamp. Chemnitz: Industriemuseum Chemnitz, 1998.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

236 M. Lauwaert

Ekman, Ivar. ‘Lego Braces for Big Changes.’ International Herald Tribune, 2–3 July 2005, 9 and 11.Eriksson, T. ‘SimLego.’ 1996. Software available from http://home.swipnet.se/∼w-20413/simlego.htm

(cited 28 June 2007).Geis, Darlene. The World of Lego Toys. New York: Abrams, 1987.Gjøl-Andersen, Pernille. ‘The Internal Dimensions of Branding. A Case Study of the Change on Brand

Strategy in Lego from a Focus on the Famous Building Brick to Introducing a Broad Variety of LegoProducts in the Children’s Universe.’ Ph.D. diss., Copenhagen Business School, 2001.

Gjøl-Andersen, Pernille, and Esben Karmark. ‘Corporate Brand Stretch – Brand Extension in a CorporateBranding Perspective.’ In Corporate Branding: Purpose/People/Process: Towards the Second Wave ofCorporate Branding, edited by Majken Schultz, Mi Antorini Yun, and Fabian F. Csaba. Copenhagen:Copenhagen Business School Press, 2005.

Greenberg, Joel. ‘Interview with Soren Lund, Lego Mindstorms and Product & Marketing DevelopmentDirector.’ In Friends Talking [podcast series]. 2006. Available from http://friendstalking.joeland-karen.com/?p=23 (cited 28 June 2007).

Hagedorn & Co. ‘Big Business Builders.’ Games & Toys 1, no. 1 (1914).Hansen, Ole Steen. Grote Zakensuccessen. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen En Lego. Translated by Marina C.

Solleveld. Gilze: Dahlgaard Media B.V., 1997.Hjarvard, Stig. ‘Brand New Toys.’ In International Colloquium of Pluridisciplinary Perspectives on Child

and Teen Consumption. Angouleme, France, 25–26 March 2004.———. ‘From Bricks to Bytes: The Mediatization of a Global Toy Industry.’ In European Culture and the

Media, edited by P. Golding Bondeberg. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2004.Jenkins, Henry. ‘From a “Must Culture” to a “Can Culture”: Legos and Lead Users.’ [blog]. 2006.

Available from http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/10/from_a_must_culture_to_a_can_c.html (cited28 June 2007).

Jessiman, J. ‘LDraw.’ 1995. Software available from http://www.ldraw.org (cited 28 June 2007).Jørgensen, Ulrik. ‘The Lego Brick System under Reconstruction – an Era of Constructional Toys Challenged

by the Information Age.’ In Path Creation and Dependency, Copenhagen, Denmark, 19–22 August 1997.Kinetz, Erika. ‘Putting Away Childish Things.’ International Herald Tribune, 2–3 April 2005: 16–17.Koerner, Brendan I. ‘Geeks in Toyland.’ Wired 2006. Available from http://www.wired.com/wired/

archive/14.02/lego.html (cited 28 June 2007).Lachmann, M. ‘MLCAD.’ 1999. Software available from http://www.lm-software.com/mlcad/ (cited 28

June 2007).Lane, Anthony. ‘The Joy of Bricks.’ 1998. Available from http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0802/

lane/excerpt_bricks.html (cited 28 June 2007).LEGO. 50 Years of Play, edited by LEGO editorial group. Billund: LEGO Group, 1982.———. ‘Annual Report 2004 Lego Group.’ Billund: LEGO Company, 2004.———. ‘Annual Report 2005 Lego Group.’ Billund: LEGO Company, 2005.———. ‘Annual Report 2006 Lego Group.’ Billund: LEGO Company, 2006.———. Heden En Verleden. Billund: LEGO Company, 1979.———. ‘Lego Ambassadors.’ 2005. Available from http://www.lego.com/eng/info/

default.asp?page=ambassadors (cited 28 June 2007).———. ‘Lego Certified Professionals.’ 2006. Available from http://www.lego.com/eng/info/

default.asp?page=affiliates (cited 28 June 2007).———. ‘Lego Timeline.’ Available from http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=timeline (cited

28 June 2007).Lithgow, Adrian. ‘Analysis: Astonishing Secret Behind the World’s Most Famous Toy. The Ghost That Is

Haunting Lego Land.’ The Mail on Sunday, 26 July 1987. Available from http://www.best-lock.com/new/page.html (cited 28 June 2007).

LOWLUG. ‘Lego Factory.’ In LOWLUG [fan-site and discussion forum]. 2007. Available from http://www.lowlug.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3952&postdays=0&postorder=asc&vote=viewresult (cited28 June 2007).

Lury, Celia. Brands: The Logos of the Global Economy. London: Routledge, 2004.McClary, Andrew. Toys with Nine Lives: A Social History of American Toys. North Haven, Conn.: Linnet

Books, 1997.McKee, Jake. ‘Announcing Lego Ambassadors.’ In Lugnet [fan-site and discussion forum]. 2005.

Available from http://news.lugnet.com/lego/?n=3116 (cited 28 June 2007).0Mollerup, Per. Collapsible: The Genius of Space-Saving Design. San Francisco, Calif.: Chronicle Books,

2001.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4

History and Technology 237

Olson, E. ‘BrickDraw3D.’ 2001. Software available from http://olson.pair.com/brickdraw3d/ (cited28 June 2007).

Page, Hilary. Playtime in the First Five Years. Croydon, Surrey: Watson & Crossland, 1938.Papert, Seymour. Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. 2nd ed. New York: Basic

Books, 1993.Papert, Seymour, and Idit Harel, eds. Constructionism. Research Reports and Essays, 1985–1990 by the

Epistemology & Learning Research Group. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1991.Pickering, David. The Ultimate Lego Book. Londen: Dorling Kindersley, 1999.Pursell, Carroll. ‘The Long Summer of Boy Engineering.’ In Possible Dreams: Enthusiasm for Technology

in America, edited by John L. Wright. Dearborn: Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village, 1992.Simonsen, Charlotte. ‘Lego Press Release.’ 2006. Available from http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?

page=pressdetail&contentid=21555&countrycode=2057&yearcode=2006&archive=true (cited 28 June2007).

Smith, A. ‘Bricksmith. Virtual Lego modeling for your Macintosh.’ 2005. Software available from http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/ (cited 28 June 2007).

Spielwarenmesse, Nürnberg. Catalogus Internationale Spielwarenmesse Nürnberg. Nürnberg: NürnbergSpielwarenmesse, 1992.

———. Catalogus Internationale Spielwarenmesse Nürnberg. Nürnberg: Nürnberg Spielwarenmesse, 1959.———. Catalogus Internationale Spielwarenmesse Nürnberg. Nürnberg: Nürnberg Spielwarenmesse,

1986.Von Hippel, Eric. Democratizing Innovation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005.Young, and Rubican. Brand Asset Valuator. Available from http://www.brandassetvaluator.com.au/ (cited

28 June 2007).Zide, L. ‘LeoCAD.’ 1996. Software available from http://www.leocad.org/ (cited 28 June 2007).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Was

hing

ton

Stat

e U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es ]

at 2

3:00

24

Oct

ober

201

4