LEGO wants to hear from you! [News]

The LEGO Group would like to hear from LEGO fans like readers of The Brothers Brick in a new online survey.

Read on for more information, including results from the December 2008 survey.

Note: For our American readers, note that commas and apostrophes are reversed in numbers. For example, 2,4=2.4 and 1.000=1,000. I’ve also added links in a few places.

As Adult or Teenage Fans of LEGO, you bring an important perspective to the LEGO Group. We respect your creativity and passion for the LEGO brand.

In December 2008, we did an online survey to learn more about the global AFOL (defined as ages 20+) and TFOL (defined as ages 13-19) communities and for your information, we have listed the key findings below. Now we ask you to take this survey again. It include some of the same questions, but also a set of new questions for you. These surveys will be conducted on a quarterly basis this year.

Please take a few moments to complete this short online survey to let us know your opinion on how we are doing.

You might notice that the link refers to the LEGO Kids Inner Circle; this is because Satmetrix, which hosts that site, is also supporting our efforts to track AFOL/TFOL opinions. Rest assured that this survey is for AFOL’s and TFOLs only.

Here are some of the key findings from the December 2008 survey:

  • The survey was completed by 6.500 (!) AFOLs and TFOLs. 19% of respondents were TFOLs, 81% was AFOLs. 94% were male, 4% female and 2% did not want to share gender.
  • When asked about likeliness to recommend LEGO products and services to friends and family, AFOLs are more likely to recommend than TFOLs. When asked what the LEGO Group can do to improve willingness to recommend, most frequent answers was, “better pricing”, “re-release classic sets”, “less custom made pieces” and “no more stickers, print on bricks”. This feedback has been communicated to relevant business units within the LEGO Group.
  • 47% of AFOLs/TFOLs are NOT members of a LEGO User group. Among those who are members of LEGO User Groups, they are in average members of 2,4 LUGs.
  • In average AFOLs and TFOLs are spending in the area of USD 1.000/EUR 700 on LEGO product annually. 20% of this is spent on second hand purchases.
  • Favorite websites include Peeron, LEGO.com, The Brothers Brick, shop.LEGO.com, Eurobricks, Brickshelf, Bricklink and Flickr.

Thank you,
The LEGO Community Team

Take the Survey

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5 comments on “LEGO wants to hear from you! [News]

  1. grandpappy

    It saddens me to see that people wanted printed bricks over stickers. Printed bricks are great for the model in the box, but I find that it stifles creativity and my ability to use the piece in my own MOCs.

  2. Meekrob

    Re: Grandpappy

    I see where you are coming from, but what I put on the survey was that they need to be smarter about what should be a sticker what should be printed. I don’t think it should be either one or the other exclusively, but they are using way too many stickers now where printed bricks would be easier and look better. It’s a subjective matter of course, but a lot of things they use as stickers I think would be better as a printed brick.

    One example I used of great stickers that are perfect for making custom models were the fish stickers from the 1990’s Divers line. Tiny fish sticker that are great for making an aquarium or whatever as opposed to just sticking on a rock for underwater. The other nice thing was that if you did use them for underwater, you could stick them on the rocks any way you pleased. This is a great use of stickers.

    A recent example of stickers that I might have preferred printed would be the doctor’s car/air mail/police car etc. Having the emblem not centered on the roof of the car is just irritating. I would have preferred these just be printed. It is nice to be able to use the emblem on another piece, but the smaller emblems are good enough for that. The big one could have just been printed on the roof.

    So, for me, it boils down to just using better judgement as to where to use a printed brick and where to use a sticker. I also can’t stand getting bent up stickers in the box. Sure, you can call to have them mail you new ones, but it happens frequently enough that I wish they would put the sticker sheets inside the instruction booklets so it would not happen as often.

    Regarding people wanting fewer custom bricks, this I just flat out disagree with. What is wrong with custom or specialized bricks? Having different and new elements is a big part of the fun with Lego. I love getting bricks that you just can’t get anywhere else or that really make a model look more realistic or different in a way that wouldn’t look nearly the same using other pieces that already exist or are more common.

    Some people call it juniorization, but I don’t see it as being “juniorized” if it is specialized like that. I think it is a narrow way of thinking about bricks and models. We wouldn’t have ship hulls or cranes or the great new car roofs and any number of other things if we eliminated this type of brick thinking. Frankly, I want more specialized pieces. Just because it isn’t a simple standard brick doesn’t mean it isn’t useful in a MOC and it doesn’t make you less of a builder for using it.

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