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IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. The phrase "det bedste ir ikke for godt" (roughly "only the best is good enough") has a lo

IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. The phrase "det bedste ir ikke for godt" (roughly "only the best is good enough") has a long history in the company. The fact that they have been able to thrive like this in a market with many competitors cloning their product is a a testament to their product quality and related brand strength. If you've used and compared the various brands in this space, you'll be familiar with the quality variations. LEGO has put immense engineering effort into having the best plastic and tightest tolerances in the industry, and I can really feel the difference when building. Here's one example comparing some of the clone brands to LEGO's own products: https://uploads.brickset.com/docs/clonebrands_v1.7.pdf https://uploads.brickset.com/docs/clonebrands_v1.7.pdf Other brands do continue to improve, and there are many companies out there that make very nice building toys, but LEGO has done a nice job making sure that everything they ship is of good quality.

megaremote 7y ago
> IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. This makes no sense, otherwise only things that are high quality would survive. Everything proves otherwise. Lego works because it is so versatile.
- jncraton 7y ago
  I'm not saying nothing else survives. Mega Bloks have been around for 30 years and are still filling their market niche well as far as I know. I'm simply saying that quality has been what sets LEGO apart from its competitors. They make great products and target wealthier populations. Their prices (and likely also margins) are higher than their competitors. They're basically the Apple of toys.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Check out Blox bricks for a scary good clone for regular bricks. I can tell every other clone from LEGO bricks with my eyes closed but that one is very good, even the color is fine and they age well too.
ebg13 7y ago
> IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. I'm sure that doesn't hurt, but these days LEGO thrives because of their relentless promotional brand tie-ins. It's not just LEGO anymore. It's LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Disney's Frozen, LEGO Toy Story 4, and so on.
- jncraton 7y ago
  You aren't wrong, but the two are tightly related. LEGO's competitors are also selling many licensed products, but LEGO's position as the best quality brand in the market has allowed them to secure contracts for the most popular IP (Star Wars, Marvel, Minecraft, etc). Their competitors are left with less popular or less family-friendly IP such as Halo or Star Trek. Its also worth noting that some of LEGO's competitors don't worry too much about IP laws. You can buy a clone brand X-wing for 50% of the cost of the genuine set, but the quality is significantly lower in my experience.
  - TylerE 7y ago
    Part of that is that LEGO has a policy against making any models including guns.
    - Larrikin 7y ago
      I read this, believed it, and repeated it to a friend in a Lego store. My friend then pointed out that there are tons of models with guns and many other weapons. I think the actual policy is that their original nonlicensed models don't feature modern day guns or military vehicles, but they are totally fine making models with guns and weapons of war so long as they are from the fantasy world or they are not modern.
      - Shaddox 7y ago
        I happen to own Lego sets of pirates, which also happen to be my favorites. They have cutlass, pistols, muskets, barrels of rum, jugs of moonshine and other piratey/armada things.
Svip 7y ago
> The phrase "det bedste ir ikke for godt" (roughly "only the best is good enough") has a long history in the company. Just for the record, the phrase is »kun det bedste er godt nok«. Your phrase would translate as 'the best is not too good', or in more natural English 'the best is bad' (which more accurately conveys the same meaning).
- SaturateDK 7y ago
  It's "kun det bedste er godt nok" alright and I would translate that to "Only the best is good enough". Just for the record.
hos234 7y ago
> best plastic and tightest tolerances What all stories people tell themselves to shell out wads of dough on bullshit no one asked for. Apple and every other luxury brand in the world makes use of this story telling subset of the population as an external evangelizing church to keep the dogma flowing. I have a bunch of Lego from decades ago that I am slowly offloading to kids of family and friends. I never bought any of my sets with this bonus usecase in mind caring about plastic quality or lifespan . I bought them because I like building stuff.
- voxl 7y ago
  And yet you didn't buy a competitive building toy other than LEGO. It's almost like consumers aren't basing their decisions on random dogma.
- tehbeard 7y ago
  You come off really, really salty in that opening paragraph. > I have a bunch of Lego from decades ago that I am slowly offloading to kids of family and friends Surely even you have to admit that the engineering quality is what allows you to be able to hand down those bricks?
  - hos234 7y ago
    Well I am salty. And I can't stand what how consumerist LEGO has become. Plus I don't like evangelists. Instead of allowing kids to figure out the value of something themselves, they fill their heads with bullet points about what they are supposed to like about a product.
    - MidnightRamen 7y ago
      Kids may not care about product value. But the people who buy the stuff for them do. I know I prefer to buy LEGO over competitor products for my children because I know they won't ever have difficulties building due to parts not fitting well.
      - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
raxxorrax 7y ago
I don't think success like this can be explained by company slogans. They do indeed have very impressive quality and creating parts with the required precision cannot be achieve with a random deep-drawing plastic process. But I believe a large part of their success is due to being at the right place at the right time. They also had very good marketing. They keep themselves present with all their branded stuff, even if their standard palette is probably far more successful. And they seem to put a lot of effort in their models. Curiously, some other hobby markets like miniature trains seem to allow for more competition, even if the market is so much smaller.
bookofjoe 7y ago
Cf Mercedes-Benz: The best or nothing
nabdab 7y ago
The quality of LEGO products has been constant across the period when they almost went bankrupt to the point where they are now. It’s not the quality that explains their ups and downs. A huge factors is their branding strategy. When they almost went bankrupt they where paying tons of money to make branded sets that just didn’t push them anywhere, now they have better deals and are doing both Marvel sets, DC sets and also have all the LEGO games, the movies and the LEGO animations putting them at the forefront of every child’s attention. They also have a meme division that’s watching social media full time, and trying to push LEGO variants of everything that goes viral. When the dress of indeterminate color was going around they had a LEGO version the same day. At the same time they’ve managed to create some extremely effective store fronts that sell their brand as much as just the products taking a hint from Apple/Disney. Now don’t get me wrong injection molding with sub 50um precision is cool. But that’s not the core of their success, they where doing that way back before they struck gold, and 4 year olds playing with their LEGO-hulk wouldn’t notice. Geeks who value quality engineering might appreciate it, but the LEGO-architects was never a blockbuster success, and even their NXT Robot series while fun, aren’t what’s pushing profits.

megaremote 7y ago

> IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. This makes no sense, otherwise only things that are high quality would survive. Everything proves otherwise. Lego works because it is so versatile.

jncraton 7y ago
I'm not saying nothing else survives. Mega Bloks have been around for 30 years and are still filling their market niche well as far as I know. I'm simply saying that quality has been what sets LEGO apart from its competitors. They make great products and target wealthier populations. Their prices (and likely also margins) are higher than their competitors. They're basically the Apple of toys.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Check out Blox bricks for a scary good clone for regular bricks. I can tell every other clone from LEGO bricks with my eyes closed but that one is very good, even the color is fine and they age well too.

ebg13 7y ago

> IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. I'm sure that doesn't hurt, but these days LEGO thrives because of their relentless promotional brand tie-ins. It's not just LEGO anymore. It's LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Disney's Frozen, LEGO Toy Story 4, and so on.

jncraton 7y ago
You aren't wrong, but the two are tightly related. LEGO's competitors are also selling many licensed products, but LEGO's position as the best quality brand in the market has allowed them to secure contracts for the most popular IP (Star Wars, Marvel, Minecraft, etc). Their competitors are left with less popular or less family-friendly IP such as Halo or Star Trek. Its also worth noting that some of LEGO's competitors don't worry too much about IP laws. You can buy a clone brand X-wing for 50% of the cost of the genuine set, but the quality is significantly lower in my experience.
- TylerE 7y ago
  Part of that is that LEGO has a policy against making any models including guns.
  - Larrikin 7y ago
    I read this, believed it, and repeated it to a friend in a Lego store. My friend then pointed out that there are tons of models with guns and many other weapons. I think the actual policy is that their original nonlicensed models don't feature modern day guns or military vehicles, but they are totally fine making models with guns and weapons of war so long as they are from the fantasy world or they are not modern.
    - Shaddox 7y ago
      I happen to own Lego sets of pirates, which also happen to be my favorites. They have cutlass, pistols, muskets, barrels of rum, jugs of moonshine and other piratey/armada things.

Svip 7y ago

> The phrase "det bedste ir ikke for godt" (roughly "only the best is good enough") has a long history in the company. Just for the record, the phrase is »kun det bedste er godt nok«. Your phrase would translate as 'the best is not too good', or in more natural English 'the best is bad' (which more accurately conveys the same meaning).

SaturateDK 7y ago
It's "kun det bedste er godt nok" alright and I would translate that to "Only the best is good enough". Just for the record.

hos234 7y ago

> best plastic and tightest tolerances What all stories people tell themselves to shell out wads of dough on bullshit no one asked for. Apple and every other luxury brand in the world makes use of this story telling subset of the population as an external evangelizing church to keep the dogma flowing. I have a bunch of Lego from decades ago that I am slowly offloading to kids of family and friends. I never bought any of my sets with this bonus usecase in mind caring about plastic quality or lifespan . I bought them because I like building stuff.

voxl 7y ago
And yet you didn't buy a competitive building toy other than LEGO. It's almost like consumers aren't basing their decisions on random dogma.
tehbeard 7y ago
You come off really, really salty in that opening paragraph. > I have a bunch of Lego from decades ago that I am slowly offloading to kids of family and friends Surely even you have to admit that the engineering quality is what allows you to be able to hand down those bricks?
- hos234 7y ago
  Well I am salty. And I can't stand what how consumerist LEGO has become. Plus I don't like evangelists. Instead of allowing kids to figure out the value of something themselves, they fill their heads with bullet points about what they are supposed to like about a product.
  - MidnightRamen 7y ago
    Kids may not care about product value. But the people who buy the stuff for them do. I know I prefer to buy LEGO over competitor products for my children because I know they won't ever have difficulties building due to parts not fitting well.
    - 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

raxxorrax 7y ago

I don't think success like this can be explained by company slogans. They do indeed have very impressive quality and creating parts with the required precision cannot be achieve with a random deep-drawing plastic process. But I believe a large part of their success is due to being at the right place at the right time. They also had very good marketing. They keep themselves present with all their branded stuff, even if their standard palette is probably far more successful. And they seem to put a lot of effort in their models. Curiously, some other hobby markets like miniature trains seem to allow for more competition, even if the market is so much smaller.

bookofjoe 7y ago

Cf Mercedes-Benz: The best or nothing

nabdab 7y ago

The quality of LEGO products has been constant across the period when they almost went bankrupt to the point where they are now. It’s not the quality that explains their ups and downs. A huge factors is their branding strategy. When they almost went bankrupt they where paying tons of money to make branded sets that just didn’t push them anywhere, now they have better deals and are doing both Marvel sets, DC sets and also have all the LEGO games, the movies and the LEGO animations putting them at the forefront of every child’s attention. They also have a meme division that’s watching social media full time, and trying to push LEGO variants of everything that goes viral. When the dress of indeterminate color was going around they had a LEGO version the same day. At the same time they’ve managed to create some extremely effective store fronts that sell their brand as much as just the products taking a hint from Apple/Disney. Now don’t get me wrong injection molding with sub 50um precision is cool. But that’s not the core of their success, they where doing that way back before they struck gold, and 4 year olds playing with their LEGO-hulk wouldn’t notice. Geeks who value quality engineering might appreciate it, but the LEGO-architects was never a blockbuster success, and even their NXT Robot series while fun, aren’t what’s pushing profits.