"The Lord of LEGO": Competitive Market of Building Bricks

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“The Lord of LEGO“:
COMPETITIVE MARKET
OF BUILDING BRICKS”
MARCH, 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 BUILDING BRICKS HISTORY & EVOLUTION
• BUILDING BRICKS TIMELINE
• LEGO HISTORY
2.0 EXISTENCE OF MARKET COMPETITORS
WITHIN THE CHINESE MARKET
• CHINESE COMPETITORS
• WESTERN COMPETITORS
3.0 PRICING DIFFERENCES IN CHINA
• PRICE COMPARISON WITH CHINESE BRANDS
4.0 INTERNET INFLUENCE ON BUILDING BRICKS
TOYS MARKET IN CHINA
• SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM INSIGHTS
• SEARCH ENGINE TREND
5.0 LEGO SUPER-FANS POSITIONING AND
BEHAVIORS
• TARGETING SUPER-FANS
• SUPER-FANS BUYING BEHAVIOR

“Asia is not a supply base,
it’s a market and a growing market”
LEGO CEO: Joergen Vig Knudstorp

THE TIMELINE OF
BUILDING BRICKS TOYS
1990 ~ Today
LEGO
Founded
LEGO Started
Interlocking Bricks
LEGO: Leg Godt
Danish for
Play Well
Mega Bloks
Launched
Banbao,
COGO, Sluban
Kre-O Launched
1960 ~ 1989
1930 ~ 1959
First Lego Set
Launched

LEGO HISTORY
From the launch of building bricks in the late 1790s
totoday’sdigitaldependentsociety,buildingbricks
toys have survived years of evolution and are still
popular among children and adults. LEGO (乐高),
a line of plastic construction toys, was founded in
1949 and has gained popularity ever since. As the
leader and founder in plastic interlocking blocks,
LEGO has survived various competition and
copy-cats in the global market.
LEGO clone is a term that has been used by LEGO
fans referring to various brands of construction
bricks. Many LEGO competitors have produced
building bricks compatible with LEGO building
bricks and taking advantage of LEGO’s brand
recognition. LEGO’s consumer market in China
is subject to heavy competition. Chinese brands
such as COGO (积高), Banbao (邦宝), Sluban (小
鲁班), etc. along with numerous Western brands
such as Mega Bloks (美高), Kre-O (酷垒), K’nex (科
乐思), etc. form a highly competitive market in the
building bricks toys industry in China.

MARKET COMPETITORS
COGO (积高) Banbao (邦宝)
• China’sfirstdomesticbuildingbrickstoycompany
that is on the share market
• Founded in 2004, manufacturing toys
• COGO building bricks series: the most profiting
segment in the company
• A wide range of distribution channels
• Online channels: Tmall (天猫), Amazon (亚马逊),
JD.com (京东), Dangdang (当当), etc.
• Physical stores such as department stores,
supermarkets, wholesalers, etc.
• Launched in 2003
• Focuses on plastic building bricks’ innovation,
production, sales and service
• The company focuses and position itself on the
educational gain segment
• This positioning is strategic as it is highly valued
by Chinese parents
• Building bricks allow children to use their
imagination and creativity while playing

MARKET COMPETITORS
Sluban (小鲁班) Mega Bloks (美高)
• Sluban (小鲁班) is named after the founder of
China’s wood craftsman Luban (鲁班)
• Luban upholds the motto of attention to detail,
thinking, innovation, continuous learning, and
the spirit of excellence
• Sluban’s ambition is in positioning its products
among the high-end - high-quality segment
• Helpdevelopmentalexcellenceamongchildren,
guiding them to develop interest in creative
design
• Mega Bloks (美高) is a Canadian children’s toy
company
• Construction set toys are the most popular line
of products in the company
• In 2014, Mega Bloks was ranked second place
in building bricks category
• Popular collection set include Halo (光晕),
Star Trek (星际迷航), etc.
• Popular children set such as Thomas & Friends
(托马斯和他的朋友), SpongeBob SquarePants
(穿方形裤子的海绵宝宝), etc.

MARKET COMPETITORS
Kre-O (酷垒) K’Nex (科乐思)
• Kre-O (酷垒) is a line of building bricks toys first
released in 2011
• Kre-O is from the Latin word “creo“, meaning
“I Create“
• Popular toy line includes Transformers (变形金
刚), Battleship (超级战舰), G.I.Joe (特种部队), etc.
• Launched in 1992 in the United States
• Forms models, machines and architectural
designs
• K’Nex originated in manufacturing building toy
components such as interlocking plastic rods
• The brand recently launched building bricks toys
to attract more consumers and further expand
itself within the construction toy industry
• Distributed through a variety of online channels
and offline channels worldwide

PRICE COMPARISONS:
Price Comparsions Between the largest Police Set Construction Toys Offered By Each Brand
LEGO
(乐高)
Sluban
(小鲁班)
Banbao
(邦宝)
COGO
(积高)
¥3.38/
Piece
¥0.17/Piece
¥0.16 /Piece
¥0.16 /Piece
¥2998 for 783 Pieces ¥149 for 862 Pieces ¥399 for 2488 Pieces ¥69 for 403 Pieces

SOCIAL MEDIA
10,600 Posts // 345,000 Followers
23 Million Related Videos
667 Posts // 1 Million Followers
646,023 Related Videos

SOCIAL MEDIA
• Generally, Western Social Media Platforms have
more subscribers/followers
• LEGO China’s official Social Media Platforms
generally have more posts than western Social
Media Platforms
• Youku(优酷)doesnothaveasmanyrelatedvideos
as Youtube, one of the reason may be that there
arenumerouspopular,everydayvideossitesother
than Youku in China, such as Tudou (土豆), Aiqiyi
(爱奇艺), etc., thus, users are more spread out
and are not as concentrated as Youtube.

SEARCH ENGINEER TREND
Google (谷歌):
• Keyword search on Google Trend with keywords
Lego, Building Bricks, Mega Bloks and Banbao
• LEGO have clear advantage over other search
keywords
• Lego experienced a steady increase since 2013
• Geographical illustration shows keyword
popularity among three large cities in China such
as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou
Baidu (百度):
• KeywordsearchonBaiduTrendwiththekeywords
Lego, Building Bricks, Mega Bloks and Banbao
• Lego outperforms all other searches
• Similar to Google’s results, Lego experienced a
steady increase since 2013

LEGO SUPER-FANS
Collectors
Purchasing
Power
Free
Promotion
Through Fan
Videos
Show Off
Creativity
Online Video
Posts
Show Off
Building
Skills
Chinese Fans’ Patterns

LEGO SUPER-FANS
• LEGO only have one product: Building Bricks
• Advantage over other brands: Committed Fans
• They are adults with purchasing power
• In the children’s toy market, some series of LEGO
are too expensive for parents
• Brand recognition among children is not as
concentrated as it is for adults
• Majority of parents, under the same quality, will
choose cheaper brands, as kids playing with
building bricks often lost pieces and patience

LEGO SUPER-FANS
• LEGO’s vast amount of more expensive series is
purchased by LEGO super-fans
• A Weibo blogger, LEGO Collector (乐高居士),
have nearly 600 posts on Weibo on different
models and series
• Many collectors have over thousands U.S.
dollars worth of bricks, with different themes
and bricks. Many collectors post videos online,
this is promotion and advertisement for free for
companies
• Such videos are one of the reasons for the
sales of construction toys, customers can mix
and match multiple sets and can show off their
creativity and building skills

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"The Lord of LEGO": Competitive Market of Building Bricks

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