Just a little Moment Of Zen….
Where I think aloud. On the internets. Welcome to my brain.
LEGOS.
One of the BEST.TOYS.EVER.
EVer.
Durable, Versatile, Educational, Creative….oh goodness I could go on. LEGOS has endured the test of time in the toy market. Not a small feat by any means, just trust me.
The advent of the many and multi-fold LEGO sets and kits? PURE genius as they create demand for more of the product. No longer are children content with the basic set.
It’s AWESOME. I have watched my nephew build countless things and it is so great to see his brain engaged for hours along with focused attention. His pride upon completion? Priceless.
One thing – LEGO started to miss 50% of the market. Girls just…grow out of LEGOs ways before the boys. Hmmm.. 
So – in a strategy that I believe is quite brilliant yet only time will prove – LEGOS decided to go after the girls with this:
They’re …..getting their hair done and decorating the house and partying! Weeeee…. It’s like Real LEGO Housewives. The Hills of LegoLand. Not trying to get all serious though – again, the marketing geek in me approves 100%
It makes sense but …”I couldn’t help but wonder…”
….wouldn’t it be so cool if in today’s market all they had to do to attract girls was feature more girls in the commercials in a girls bedroom? Not building spaceships, transformer and Star Wars Replicas but………. but…but what?
Then I started thinking….what else would entice the girls of 2012? Amusement Parks came to mind. Zoos? A school?
Um…I got nothing. Nothing that would sell as much as the gender-stereotyping-little-girl-grown-fast “Friends.”
And that is …just what it is.
Times….they are a changing.
***Not trying to make a statement or cast judgment or whatever – they have a tree house and a cafe….whatever. I’m not saying this is sexist or anti-fem. It just sort of perpetuates this whole thing where 9 year olds start putting LV bags on their Dear Santa lists along with $150 jeans, hair extensions, and tank tops that say “Too Hot” on them. That should not start till…maybe middle school. LOL. Even then .. “My Super Sweet Sixteen” …..oh boy.
Yeah. Gender roles problems. Grr.
LEGO’s = Awesome. I know that I am not the “norm” but just so you know; I appreciate your perspective.
There is not a piece that assumes the role of gender for me. I just like and love what I do. Yet, in a “norm” realm I get how this is something of a conflict I legoed mainy “starships” and “boy type” kind of things. But – I was drawn to the.
SO – I like that you can look at this with the marketing piece as well as what is personal.
Now – where is my box of old school remnants?
Good thoughts here. Thank you for this.
There are plenty of gender neutral sets they could make. My sister and I saved our pennies for the Harry Potter set. Im sure something for Hunger Games or other popular books/movies would sell. What about sets for building houses, or roller coasters? What about sets for making landmarks– the Empire State Building, the Kremlin, the Great Wall?
I’m not a marketing person, but as an actor who has to sometimes “sell” my face/voice for a product, I try hard to think about the ethics of what I’m selling. Not that gender disparity in marketing is non-ethical/I wouldn’t sell a Lego aimed for girls specifically/blah blah blah… I just wish we saw more ads like the one you posted, with the little girl in overalls holding her Lego creation.
That girl was me. I wish we saw more of her!
(Again, I know nothing about marketing and how products are sold… Just my personal two cents.)
I love Legos – as my therapist and I are working on “distractions”, maybe I should go buy myself a set…
What I don’t understand are the Lego video games. Doesn’t that take away from the simple creativity?
I’ve always loved legos, loved the engineering ones when I was in my teens. Girly lego would have made me laugh and probably would have gotten mixed up with the other bits pretty fast. Lego’s cool because of what you can build with it, so unless they have a wide range of things girls can build I’m sure the attraction for the pretty package will wear off fast and they’ll be fighting with their brother over the ‘rest of’ the lego!
I do think there is a bit too much gender stereotyping, girls must play with dolls and play house and cooking, boys like rough and tumble, trucks, wars… well I was a very non-typical little girl who loved her trucks and cars, making cities in the dirt and mud-lakes, and rough and tumble with the boys at school as much as I liked my dolls and girly stuff.
I really like the ad you posted, she’s made something all her own from the bits she had, used her imagination. It makes me sad sometimes when legos come with instructions on how to build what is on the box exactly that way – no room for creating your own thing at all. Unless you are like me, and always end up doing that anyway, instructions or not