This is a great tip: If you really need to do gender marketing to raise profit, don’t make boring toys that suck, make the cool toys you have more appealing and relatable to girls. Mora badass girl ninjas, more girls in your advertising, just don’t ignore that girls/women are people and not a marketing stereotype
Once again, this comic is full of crap and I hate seeing it making the rounds again.
Lego Friends was made specifically because other block-making companies in Europe were eating Lego’s goddamn lunch by producing sets with similar figure styles that were more “girly” fashion/fun-based stuff. Lego is not merely a US product.
And why can’t there be Lego sets based on juice bars and shopping and pets? Aren’t those things parts of life that people of both genders enjoy? Much of Lego’s output in the town/city theme has been pretty heavily “boy”-skewed throughout its run, with cars and construction being the major themes. Now, the city/town theme HAS gotten a lot better in recent years, both with more “civilian/shop” themed sets (which bluntly were always my preferred Lego sets, I loved making towns) and in gender ratio of minifigs; the last several years has pushed “City” themed sets in particular to a nigh 1:1 gender ratio, even in the more adventurey sets. Go ahead, count ‘em next time you’re in the store. But that doesn’t mean “slap some women minifigs into the ‘boy’ set” is the sole solution.
Some folks like the pastels and want to build magical treehouses, which wasn’t something Lego really catered to until recently. No, that shouldn’t be girls’ only option as prescribed by society, but neither should the “boys” kits be their only option.
And the Friends kits are full of neat stuff. Kart racing. Sports. Music. Robotics. Did any of you LOOK at the Elves sets? With the giant buildable dragons and magic castles of both good and evil? Frankly, I’m kinda annoyed at myself for not snapping up some of these, especially the Elves stuff.
Friggin’ RESCUE SUB
On top of holy shit those are neat sets, there’s that hey, guess what. Parents in the west are unfortunately prone to thinking along very gendered lines, and WILL deny girls the chance to get toys based on the “but that’s for boys” arglebargle no matter if one or two of the space rangers or ninjas has a “female” face tampograph. This kicks open that door to getting girls Legos, and wedges the foot in for other themes.
And on top of that it frankly got Lego more shelf space in retail outlets. They literally negotiated more shelf space than they had before, so it’s not like they’re making less of everything else.
And on top of all that why does the comic think Lego Friends is meant for adults and Lego would give a damn about that in the first place, when the intended market is clearly NOT them?
So yeah. Comic’s crap. Lego’s got room for all sorts of looks and feels and themes that can play together.
Those Dragon sets are really well made, too.
Reblogging for the deep-sixing of the crap comic.
Hell, can Lego bring back like Castle and Space with the Friends bodies? Because that shit is legit.
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