Lego is a popular line of construction toys that consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and accompanied by range of gears, minifigures and various other parts that can be assembled and connected in different ways, to build vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. One of the biggest selling points of Lego Toys despite being costly is that toys stimulate the imagination and creativity of the customers. Lego was almost bankrupt in the 2004, as children turned away from the plastic bricks in favor of video games and computers and according to Harvard Business Review, “Central to LEGO’s turnaround is a new structure for strategically coordinating innovation activities, led by a cross-functional team: the Executive Innovation Governance Group. LEGO managers take a broad view of innovation that includes not only new products but pricing plans, community building, business processes, and channels to market, all of which can be powerful business drivers. The company distributes responsibilities for innovation in all areas across four groups and expects different degrees of innovativeness from each of them.”
Innovation is at the heart of the Lego survival and further continuation of its innovation strategy, Lego launched Cuusoo website in 2008 which allows users to submit ideas for Lego products to be turned into potential sets and users may create a page about their proposed idea for a set. Once the project reaches 10,000 supporters, it is then reviewed by the Cuusoo team who then decide on whether to produce it and once decided to produce, the ideator receives a 1% royalty on the net revenue. All the ideas related to alcohol, sex, drugs, religious references, post-WWII warfare or based on a first person shooter that are deemed inappropriate for younger Lego fans are rejected by the company. The term Cuusoo is Japanese and means imagination or wish. Cuusoo System, a subsidiary of the Japanese Elephant Designs, has been collaborating with LEGO for the past ten years and the company currently manages two platforms, Cuusoo MUJI and Lego Cuusoo. There are about 340,000 active users and 90 percent of Lego Cuusoo users come from overseas. Lego Cuusoo website also helps in strengthening the Lego player community as player and user communities are essential for the innovation and brand building strategy of the company. Along with company’s internal designers, the Cuusoo community innovators will speed up the product innovation process and bring new innovative products to the market on regular basis.
Some of the ideas that already hit the shelves are Shinkai 6500, a model based on a real submarine, Hayabusa 369-piece, model of the Japanese spacecraft was made by Daisuke Okubo and Lego Minecraft, a set based on the video game Minecraft. Lego MinecraftMicro World is a Lego set based on the sandbox video game Minecraft, which revolves around the game's player character, Steve, and one of the game's enemies, the Creeper. Mojang started a project on the Lego CUUSOO program and within a matter of days; the 10,000 signature objective was achieved with support of Minecraft community. Sandbox is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and has tools to modify the world themselves and create how they play. According to Forbes, “Minecraft is a legitimate worldwide phenomenon, a building block video game that launched in 2009 and now has over 8 million paying customers and a total of 40 million users worldwide, its own conference, and a legion of YouTube stars.” Lego Minecraft Micro World was widely popular which led to shortages as both Minecraft players and other enthusiasts bought this upon its release and forced to ship more sets during the holidays.
Lego innovation platform Cuusoo is a win-win for both the Lego player community and the company as number of ideas generated will be more and company can rely on its player community and other creative players whose ideas will be more relevant and chance of them being successful will be more compared to the ideas by internal designers within Lego. This is also most cost effective, speedier and easiest way of engaging with player and creative communities and they are just sharing only 1% of net revenues as royalty. The voting mechanism not only helps in selecting the best ideas but also helps in creating buzz about the product even before they are manufactured and there will be a ready market available even before the product launch who will be interested to buy. Crowdsourcing innovation is being adopted by businesses and Lego is one company that is using this methodology extremely effectively and as discussed innovation and creativity are essential for Lego’s long term survival. Lego is facing tough competition from videogames and online based games that are attracting the players more. Lego has to constantly innovate and launch new sets on regular basis to keep its consumers attracted to its product.
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