Scarves & Socks

Lego Targets Girls With Pink Blocks, Cute Figures, & No Creativity

Reports that this month in Europe and on January 1 in the U.S., the company will start selling a new line called Lego Friends, which CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp says aims to "reach the other 50 percent of the world's children." In the past Lego has launched five different initiatives to win over girls, but none of the toys really took off. The gender gap got worse early in the last decade when the company purposely focused on appealing to boys. The effort was wildly successful to the point that some now say there's a "Lego phase" for boys like the "princess phase" girls go through. The company increased its profits dramatically after analyzing how boys play, and now it's used the same methods to develop a line meant to appeal to little girls.

A tremendous amount of thought went into developing Lego Friends — which is part of the reason it's so disappointing. The company didn't just take a regular Lego set and make the blocks pink. Beginning in 2007, Lego pulled together its top designers and sent out teams to shadow girls as they played. After breaking down what girls really want in a toy, they came up with sets of pink Legos that borrow elements from Disney Princess and American Girl. The team found that what girls were most concerned about was beauty, a term that also encompasses "harmony (a pleasing, everything-in-its-right-place sense of order); friendlier colors; and a high level of detail." Girls hated Lego's iconic minifigure because it's too boxy and they like to have a figure they can identify with. Girls told them, "I want to shrink down and be there." The issue isn't just the look of Lego sets. The researchers found that while boys focus on following the directions and getting the set together, girls like to take breaks throughout the process and start developing stories.

Source: Jezebel