An Open Letter to The LEGO Group: SDCC Exclusive Minifigures

[agoodfella77]

Nice polite responses. Basically what they said is what I suspected. They have forwarded the letter to Marketing and events, and are probably dumping any inquiries there way as well (while lending moral support to the inquirer. Most CS departments I've encountered tend to get very ornery when problems from Marketing schemes or events land in their laps and increase their already very high volume. Especially for wholly internal stuff that they have no buy in, no feedback, no briefings and no recourse. They will forward every report, every complaint, every comment, every possible negative over to those that they hold as responsible.

Rome wasn't built in a day. This is just the beginning.

+1

Whether you like or hate comic con figs, LEGO is a company first and foremost. They're there to make money (by promoting a product). They could care less about stuff like "loyal customers" and "fans". Remember, to a corporation, a "fan" is just a person who will buy excessive amounts of product no matter what, because they like said product and want as much of it as possible. They are disposable incomes, like any other customer, and that's it. The only "advantage" is that these "fans" are willing to pay more to support the product. Industry 101.

I'm sorry if that sounds a little harsh on LEGO, but you should never lose sight of the main picture.

If they haven't already, they'll start caring.

Remember folks, if you care, if this matters to you, take a few minutes out -- write LEGO. It doesn't cost you anything. Let them hear you.

Edited August 7, 2014 by agoodfella

[Meatman]

Lego most certainly wants to create hype by releasing limited figures. They know exactly what they are doing and they are achieving their goal. IMO Writing them letters and complaining is pointless because their plan is working the way that they want it to. You don't think Lego's marketing team knows that 500 of a certain figure isn't going to be enough? They know how many minifigures they sell and what the market is like.

[agoodfella77]

Lego most certainly wants to create hype by releasing limited figures. They know exactly what they are doing and they are achieving their goal. IMO Writing them letters and complaining is pointless because their plan is working the way that they want it to. You don't think Lego's marketing team knows that 500 of a certain figure isn't going to be enough? They know how many minifigures they sell and what the market is like.

Do you think pissing off large portions of their customer base was in the Power Point presentation? And if you are right, why did LEGO decide to increase the supply of SDCC Exclusives this year?

By your logic they should keep the number stable or even reduce it. Everything you wrote is sheer conjecture.

In point of fact, it seems that TLG has responded to the criticism surrounding the SDCC fiasco last year by increasing supply and also releasing figures that are less well known / non-household names. This is a very encouraging trend.

Edited August 7, 2014 by agoodfella

[Meatman]

So then Lego did take action on people's complaints and yet that still isn't good enough?

Would you guys prefer that Lego just not do the SDCC anymore so you don't feel left out?

Do you think pissing off large portions of their customer base was in the Power Point presentation? And if you are right, why did LEGO decide to increase the supply of SDCC Exclusives this year?

How large in your opinion is large? I certainly don't care about them, nor do my kids.

I took the kids to Brickfair last week and talked to some familiar faces and the SDCC topic came up and the impression that I got was that people were not so much upset about not being able to get the con figs and sets for collecting purposes as much as it was more of a bit of jealousy over how much money people were getting for them.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Meatman

[agoodfella77]

So then Lego did take action on people's complaints and yet that still isn't good enough?

Would you guys prefer that Lego just not do the SDCC anymore so you don't feel left out?

I've made my position very clear on this thread.

[BrickG]

I don't think they're pissing off a large portion. Maybe 1% of their buyers MAX and I think that's generous. Practically zero of them, no matter how angry about this, will not stop buying Lego.

So why should they care? It's a numbers game. This marketing is probably helping them a lot more than hurting, if it's hurting them at all since those of us who hate these things will buy Lego anyways.

[opn2]

Edited September 27, 2014 by opn2

[agoodfella77]

I don't think they're pissing off a large portion. Maybe 1% of their buyers MAX and I think that's generous. Practically zero of them, no matter how angry about this, will not stop buying Lego.

So why should they care? It's a numbers game. This marketing is probably helping them a lot more than hurting, if it's hurting them at all since those of us who hate these things will buy Lego anyways.

At the absolute most generous they're "pissing off" a couple dozen adults who aren't willing to accept the fact that they can't always get what they want and liken Lego's promotional tactics to taking candy from a baby.

Lego does not care. Lego is not going to care. They've already responded and their minds are made up. But just in case you're still not getting the memo, I've prepared a list of companies that care whether or not an adult got a promotional item they insisted they be available to them at a price they deem reasonable.

Thanks for sharing your opinions.

Now you won't mind if others share theirs, right?

[Faefrost]

Lego most certainly wants to create hype by releasing limited figures. They know exactly what they are doing and they are achieving their goal. IMO Writing them letters and complaining is pointless because their plan is working the way that they want it to. You don't think Lego's marketing team knows that 500 of a certain figure isn't going to be enough? They know how many minifigures they sell and what the market is like.

To be honest, and from having way too much experience dealing with corporate Marketing groups, I will tell you that there are 2 core tasks that they perform that we are talking about here. One they do extraordinarily well, and one let's just say not so much at times.

The first is actual product development research. For the stuff you will be putting on the shelves Marketing groups will go all out. They pull in the experts, they get deep research data. They know what will sell, how much it will sell, and what will be needed. They are unheralded genius's in this regard.

But

Then there are the one off Marketing schemes. The non product stuff. The "special" things. These are often at best somebodies bright idea churned out over lunch on Margarita Tuesday. These are the infamous "it seemed like a good idea" marketing schemes. Just attention getters. They operate off blind assumptions, things that a group of C student communications majors know with absolute certainty, and gin. Most often they are harmless. Sometimes they are even effective. And then you get the real disasters "Hey lets sell Grand Theft Auto Games by hiring Hookers" sort of thing. The SDCC Minifigs feel like one of those type projects. They have researched nothing beyond "can we do this? There is some sort of matching money from a vendor involved"? Typically it does not take much push back to get them to rethink these schemes (or just let them sober up a bit). But that will be influenced by exactly how much money is involved. (And remember its not that Lego ie TLG is getting paid off. It's that the vendor such as SDCC is providing Marketing Budget Money. Which is free money for the Marketing department. Trying to separate a Marketing Group from that tends to require a chain saw.) In case you haven't figured it out yet corporate and multi vendor marketing pretty much runs on a series of oddly legal bribes, kickbacks, and similar. Oh and booze.

[BrickG]

It's more than a few dozen lol. I'd say hundreds. Maybe more. But that's hundreds out of like millions.

And everyone saying people who want these are entitled... geeze I'm sick of that argument. You can literally say that about anything and it's never helpful.

Using the "entitled" argument adds nothing to a discussion and I'd compare it to stuff like "you mad bro?" in it's level of meaninglessness. Not because there aren't entitled but because the argument for when people are is so vague, so incredibly un-universally agreed upon at times that it makes it useless. And the fact that it's largely defined based on values so everyone has a different line of where "entitled" ends and begins.... it's just a useless thing to say most of the time.

[agoodfella77]

To be honest, and from having way too much experience dealing with corporate Marketing groups, I will tell you that there are 2 core tasks that they perform that we are talking about here. One they do extraordinarily well, and one let's just say not so much at times.

The first is actual product development research. For the stuff you will be putting on the shelves Marketing groups will go all out. They pull in the experts, they get deep research data. They know what will sell, how much it will sell, and what will be needed. They are unheralded genius's in this regard.

But

Then there are the one off Marketing schemes. The non product stuff. The "special" things. These are often at best somebodies bright idea churned out over lunch on Margarita Tuesday. These are the infamous "it seemed like a good idea" marketing schemes. Just attention getters. They operate off blind assumptions, things that a group of C student communications majors know with absolute certainty, and gin. Most often they are harmless. Sometimes they are even effective. And then you get the real disasters "Hey lets sell Grand Theft Auto Games by hiring Hookers" sort of thing. The SDCC Minifigs feel like one of those type projects. They have researched nothing beyond "can we do this? There is some sort of matching money from a vendor involved"? Typically it does not take much push back to get them to rethink these schemes (or just let them sober up a bit). But that will be influenced by exactly how much money is involved. (And remember its not that Lego ie TLG is getting paid off. It's that the vendor such as SDCC is providing Marketing Budget Money. Which is free money for the Marketing department. Trying to separate a Marketing Group from that tends to require a chain saw.) In case you haven't figured it out yet corporate and multi vendor marketing pretty much runs on a series of oddly legal bribes, kickbacks, and similar. Oh and booze.

It's more than a few dozen lol. I'd say hundreds. Maybe more. But that's hundreds out of like millions.

And everyone saying people who want these are entitled... geeze I'm sick of that argument. You can literally say that about anything and it's never helpful.

Using the "entitled" argument adds nothing to a discussion and I'd compare it to stuff like "you mad bro?" in it's level of meaninglessness. Not because there aren't entitled but because the argument for when people are is so vague, so incredibly un-universally agreed upon at times that it makes it useless. And the fact that it's largely defined based on values so everyone has a different line of where "entitled" ends and begins.... it's just a useless thing to say most of the time.

Great posts.

Thank you both for contributing to the discussion.

[Meatman]

It's more than a few dozen lol. I'd say hundreds. Maybe more. But that's hundreds out of like millions.

And everyone saying people who want these are entitled... geeze I'm sick of that argument. You can literally say that about anything and it's never helpful.

Using the "entitled" argument adds nothing to a discussion and I'd compare it to stuff like "you mad bro?" in it's level of meaninglessness. Not because there aren't entitled but because the argument for when people are is so vague, so incredibly un-universally agreed upon at times that it makes it useless. And the fact that it's largely defined based on values so everyone has a different line of where "entitled" ends and begins.... it's just a useless thing to say most of the time.

Great Post.

[BlueberryWaffles]

Lego does not care. Lego is not going to care. They've already responded and their minds are made up. But just in case you're still not getting the memo, I've prepared a list of companies that care whether or not an adult got a promotional item they insisted they be available to them at a price they deem reasonable.

What about all the action figure companies that sell the exclusives at the booth and online afterwards for the same price? Sure, people might not have insisted but it's even better if they did it do begin with, right?

(Also, where did you get that Pac-Man esque emoticon? Never seen it before.)

[obsidianheart]

What about all the action figure companies that sell the exclusives at the booth and online afterwards for the same price? Sure, people might not have insisted but it's even better if they did it do begin with, right?

(Also, where did you get that Pac-Man esque emoticon? Never seen it before.)

My understanding is that those companies (Hasbro, mostly?) put up items that were exclusively for sale at the con, but not the raffled off freebies. I might be misinformed, though.

[MAB]

Remember if you do want LEGO to keep doing exclusives for comic cons and other events, then you can also write to them and tell them how much you enjoy that they make these figures that would otherwise not make it into more general retail sets.

[BrickG]

Why a large amount of people probably don't care I'd wager just about the only people who care to write lego to KEEP doing it are people who have the option of going to these places and getting these things available.

Certainly the amount of people passionate enough about this subject to write Lego to KEEP doing this who also can't keep these figures is... probably like 1 or 2 :P.

"Oh please Lego keep on doing this! I implore you! Though I cannot get these items myself I enjoy watching other people get them so much I'll write you to continue the tradition!"

[agoodfella77]

Remember if you do want LEGO to keep doing exclusives for comic cons and other events, then you can also write to them and tell them how much you enjoy that they make these figures that would otherwise not make it into more general retail sets.

This is a very fair comment and in fact I absolutely encourage it.

Pro or Con, it helps raise awareness within TLG that this is an important issue that their customers care about.

Nearly all issues have different sides, the discussion / debate is what is most important IMO. Nothing is worse than being irrelevant.

Having said that, I am very confident that any fair and objective assessment of this situation will clearly side with the "con" SDCC exclusive side and further that any "pro" argument, if anything, will only serve to highlight the inequity of this system.

Why a large amount of people probably don't care I'd wager just about the only people who care to write lego to KEEP doing it are people who have the option of going to these places and getting these things available.

Certainly the amount of people passionate enough about this subject to write Lego to KEEP doing this who also can't keep these figures is... probably like 1 or 2 :P.

"Oh please Lego keep on doing this! I implore you! Though I cannot get these items myself I enjoy watching other people get them so much I'll write you to continue the tradition!"

I certainly feel the "pro" argument hardly has a leg to stand on, and that the more you say it out loud, the more you realize that it doesn't make any sense.

Edited August 13, 2014 by agoodfella

[MAB]

Having said that, I am very confident that any fair and objective assessment of this situation will clearly side with the "con" SDCC exclusive side and further that any "pro" argument, if anything, will only serve to highlight the inequity of this system.

I don't think you should expect a fair and objective assessment, though. At least, not from Lego. They will do a business focused assessment. If stopping exclusives hits their bottom line at events like SDCC, and they lose advertising deals / discounts because of drawing in less people, then they won't stop.

[agoodfella77]

I don't think you should expect a fair and objective assessment, though. At least, not from Lego. They will do a business focused assessment. If stopping exclusives hits their bottom line at events like SDCC, and they lose advertising deals / discounts because of drawing in less people, then they won't stop.

This is where we just fundamentally disagree.

Frankly, we couldn't disagree more. Your stance is that it HAS to be a zero sum game -- i.e. one party wins and the other party loses -- whereas I believe that there is a situation where it can be win / win for everyone.

If TLG after making all their assessments feels that they must have the SDCC exclusive system (something which I don't buy for a minute -- and I will never actually cede this point -- but for the sake of argument, let's just assume this for a second) -- well then go ahead -- have exclusives.

But there are plenty of viable solutions: 1) print very specific "SDCC 20xx" stamped figs designating for each convention -- it gives each attendee who snags these convention swag or 2) release these exclusives -- even if a couple of years later, etc. etc.

Edited August 13, 2014 by agoodfella

[MAB]

For me, the current situation is win/nothing for lego/me. I don't feel I have lost if I don't have an exclusive.

There is a reason lego do it, as otherwise they wouldn't do it. Will they tell us the reason they do it? No.

[Super Goblin]

Who is to say if Lego didn't make these figs for SDCC we would never get them in a set. Toy Biz and ahead to both managed to make multiple versions of Black Spidey, Spiderwoman and Mattel/DCD/DCC have made Bizarro, Black suit Superman, Green Arrow but Lego could never make these in a set. That is the biggest cop out excuse ever.

I would say by making these exclusives they have limited themselves from including them in sets in the future.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Super Goblin

[obsidianheart]

Well, TLG was notified about this and here is their answer (official from LEGO Brands Relations department via Kevin Hinkle)

"We appreciate the feedback you are sharing and please know that it is being routed to the appropriate teams internally for review. We hope that you know it is never our intention to disappoint the LEGO fan community. We understand the perspective that you’re providing, but we also hope that you know that having exclusives available at an event such as San Diego Comic-Con is a routine activity for just about every major brand on the show floor. We are discussing ways in which we may possibly meet the needs of a Con fan and the needs of our LEGO fans beyond the Con, but we also understand that we cannot always make decisions that suit everyone. We value the connection and dialogue we have with LEGO fans, and we have many programs and opportunities in place that demonstrate our commitment to you. Again, thank you for sharing your feedback and know it is being shared internally with relevant decision makers."

If TLG after making all their assessments feels that they must have the SDCC exclusive system -- well then go ahead -- have exclusives.

That first reply makes it sound like they've probably gone ahead and accepted your permission.

[m0dulo]

But there are plenty of viable solutions: 1) print very specific "SDCC 20xx" stamped figs designating for each convention -- it gives each attendee who snags these convention swag

Isn't a publicly-available minifig that is only available at SDCC 20xx with "SDCC 20xx" stamped on it just as or possibly more exclusive than one that is only available at SDCC 20xx?

[obsidianheart]

Isn't a publicly-available minifig that is only available at SDCC 20xx with "SDCC 20xx" stamped on it just as or possibly more exclusive than one that is only available at SDCC 20xx?

He wants the non-stamped version available in a regular retail setting, is what I'm reading.

[m0dulo]

He wants the non-stamped version available in a regular retail setting, is what I'm reading.

That is how I read it, too. I don't understand is what makes one exclusive minifig acceptable and not another.