The LEGO Story

The Lego Movie is a film that focuses on the impression of life in a Lego world but misses key concepts incorporated with Lego. At a first impression, the Lego Movie is viewed as a movie directed towards children to stir their imagination but this would be ironic to what is being portrayed in the film. By analyzing the ideas behind the movie in a sociological process, distinct themes can be connected and reflected within reality. The Lego Movie can be viewed in a functionalist perspective that is influenced by the conflict theory within the divided Lego society. To connect the sociological views to their society, one must understand how they interact and why they interact the way they do.

The use of LEGOs is an extraordinary thing, but it is shocking to see exactly how controversial a small toy can become. People of all ages have been found to enjoy this toy. Companies and organizations such as MIT and NASA have even found a use for them. The toy has become known as a child’s imagination tool and has not been exclusively used for adults. The documentary shows that adults come together to compete in competitions on who can create the greatest LEGO sculpture. Many people may not know just how big this toy is used around the world.

The struggle for survival is one that has filled reams of history. People have gone great lengths and taken large leaps of faith because they carry a spirit that inspires the will to go on and overcome the odds in the way. From one such simple story, grew the inspiring story of Ole Kirk Christiansen, the founder of LEGO.

The game i chose as my Adventure game was Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, i played this game on my IPhone since it was the simplest way to get my hands on it, this game was developed by the Warner Bros. company and is available for free in the App Store. This game has no ESRB rating but it is rated ages 9 and above by the App Store and was released December 5th 2013. This game consists of expirencing all the orginal adventures from the original movies but this time you control the actions and the results and all while being a lego character, you will go through each chapter starting with Episode I: The Phantom Menace and so on to try to achieve your missions as a jedi.

Lego Corp was established in 1932 by founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen. With just 10 employees, they start crafting wooden construction toys. The most famous of these were the wooden duck. As the popularity of plastic toys rose in the mid-1950s, the company did away with wooden toys and started focusing on manufacturing plastic automatic binding blocks. As early as the beginning of the company, their motto was “Only the best is good enough.” High quality and safe products have been the focal point of LEGO Group for decades. Over the years LEGO Group has kept its word on that motto and has supplied millions of families with creative toys that last.

Advances in the field of information technology and introduction of new hi-tech form of entertainment such as tablets and gaming consoles had left Lego trailing in the entertainment field. Jorgen Vig Knudstorp was appointed as the CEO to revamp the company’s business process, organization structure and information systems. Knudstorp was quick to act and first made changes in the company’s production process. He encouraged designers to use the unused components in development of new products and design, thus reducing the number of unused

LEGO Group was formed by a carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1932 in Billund, Denmark. The Word, LEGO was meant to attract kids of various age groups, it is derived from Danish phrase, “leg godt” meaning: “Play well”. Initially LEGO was produced as a wooden brick, with their motto, “Only the best is the best.” The LEGO Brick was produced in 1958 composed of interlocking tubes that offered unlimited building opportunities. The purpose of The LEGO Brick was to inspire creative and controlled problem solving, while adhering to common curiosity using your everyday imagination (Sandgaard Jensen). It was awarded “Toy of the century” by Fortune Magazine, as well as British Association of Toy Retailers. LEGOs was sold in more than 130 countries. A couple major products include: Pre-school products LEGO DUPLO, Play Themes LEGO city line, BIONICLE, and many more Licensed Products built up around movies or books also including a LEGO Education Board game. Market sizes category US, Australia, United Kingdom, New

As their name and ideal, Lego has been beloved by the children as well as the parents for decades. Not only as plastic toy bricks, but also effective educational tools, the LEGO Company enjoyed continuous growth and broaden the global brand value. The LEGO brand moved to third place in 2002/2003 with only Coca-cola and Kellogg having greater respect among families with children. Even though as the overall toy market faces challenges, LEGO’s revenue and profits are increasing rapidly, especially since 2005. This profitability didn’t change even in the current recession in the global market. The LEGO Group achieved record-breaking profits in

LEGO A/S Aastvej 1 DK-7190 Billund, Denmark Tel: CVR-no: Residence: Reporting Year: Internet: E-mail: +45 79 50 60 70 54 56 25 19 Billund 1 January – 31 December www.LEGO.com sustainability@LEGO.com

This essay will consider firstly the position of Lego in relation to both the constraints of the internal and external

Lego is one of the most recognizable companies across the world. The Lego Group was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen and has since been passed down from generation to generation, currently owned by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen. The Lego Group has headquarters in Billund, Denmark and main offices in USA, UK, China, and Singapore. The Lego name originated from the abbreviation of two Danish words “leg godt” meaning “play well”. The present-day Lego brick was launched in 1958 with the interlocking principle which allowed for an infinite amount of building possibilities. Because of the Lego Groups mass size there also comes a very precise corporate structure. The Lego company is operated in a five-member Management Board. The Management Board consists of the Chief Executive Officer(CEO), Chief Marketing Officer(CMO), Chief Financial Officer(CFO), Chief Commercial Officer(CCO), and the Chief Operations Officer(COO)/Chief HR Officer(CHRO). From there it is further broken down into a 21-member Corporate Management and a board of directors. This corporate structure allows for individual departments to work successfully within the larger corporation. With the Lego Groups mission to “inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow” they have become one of the world’s largest manufactures of toys, valuing imagination, creativity, fun, learning, caring, and quality.

The company LEGO (Appendix 1), was far from the reality when in the year 2000 the famous Bricks were named as ‘the toy of the century’ by Fortune Magazine. the numbers were reflecting a different reality when in 2003 and 2004 the losses were of more than $400m on annual sales of over $1b (Lego case of study 2014).

LEGO is one of the largest companies in Denmark and a company with a very strong brand. But even so, their economy fell apart in 2003-2004 and we are interested in what they did wrong and what they did to turn their significant loss around to a profit in 2005. So our problem is:

The LEGO Group is a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. It was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, initially a small carpenter’s workshop (Lego Group, 2011). It has since grown into a modern, global enterprise that is now, in terms of sales, the world’s fourth-largest manufacturer of toys (Keynote, 2010). The LEGO Groups core product is a line of plastic, interconnecting building bricks, predominantly targeted at children aged 3-14 years, sold in over 130 Countries (Encyclopaedia of Consumer Brands, 1994). The LEGO Group operate globally in the Toys & Games sector, with the UK market valued at

One of their first patents passed in October 1961, three years after the initial filing date was the concept of the Toy Building Brick. “This invention relates to toy building elements and more particularly to toy building bricks or blocks adapted to be connected together by means of projections extending from the faces of the elements and arranged so as to engage protruding portions of an adjacent element when two such elements are assembled- Toy elements of this kind will be referred to generally as building bricks, and the principal object of the invention is to provide improved coupling means for clamping such building bricks together in any desired relative position thus providing for a vast variety' of combinations of the bricks for making toy structures of many different kinds and shapes.” The full patent will not be cited, but a main aspect of this paper is to find out exactly what DOES make sense for Lego, and this here is the perfect example of a positive play on IP and protecting an invention that was created by the company that could not simply be published nor kept a trade secret as it is their main product that they offer to