Lego Consumer Behaviour

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LEGO has always been creative in advertising its brand and new lines of toys to the public. For example in 2013 the brand embarked on a nine-month road show to raise awareness of its Legends of Chima range. The following year they launched their new Cartoon Network constructible toy collectibles range on the London Eye (Carter, 2015). These two marketing activities gathered a large amount of attention, and helped develop a brand perception amongst consumers.

In our technologically driven society the average consumer is exposed to about three thousand advertisements per day (Lasn, 1999). In order to stand out amongst the rest, marketers are becoming more and more creative in their attempts to gain attention for their products. Many marketers are attempting to counter the sensory overload caused by advertising clutter in order to stand out amongst their competitors (Solomon, M., Russell-Bennett, R. and Previte, J. 2012). One expensive strategy involves buying large blocks of advertising space in order to dominate consumers’ attention. This is exactly what LEGO did in its 2012 BRICK campaign. The advert appeared on 4 consecutive pages as shown in Figure 3.

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Initially this advertisement might appear unimaginative, which may be puzzling to consumers since LEGO has always been a company that has fostered imagination and creativity, however when each of the scenarios is read, the advert comes to life in a way that is unique to each reader. The whole advertising campaign evoked creativity and imagination and was hugely successful in bringing the thrill back to LEGO toys (Dahlen, Lange & Smith, 2010).

Brand image is the key driver of brand equity, which is defined as a ‘consumer’s general perception and feeling about a brand’ (Zhang, 2015, p.1). The purpose of any marketing activity is to establish a brand image in a consumers mind and stimulate actual purchasing behaviour through information and persuasion. Over the last few decades there has been speculation about whether LEGO has taken its eye off its original values. This, in turn, may have affected parent’s perceptions of the value of LEGO toys in the stimulation of creativity amongst their children. For example, the company is increasingly developing new product lines that promote movies, games and videos. Rather then promoting imagination and creative fun, they come with instructive pictures on the front, which some suggest is increasing rates of stress amongst parents and children (Palmer, 2014, p.1). Was this a contributing factor towards LEGO’s downturn at the end of the 90s?

Nevertheless, the group has worked hard to rectify this and in 2016 was ranked in the top position by the Reputation Institute’s UK RepTrak, who identified the 150 most reputable companies among the UK general public based on products, services, leadership and more (Glenday, 2016). LEGO is able to successfully manage the perceptions of its millions of customers because it generates positive content across the channels its customers interact with (Allen Jones, 2015). Even for parents who do not purchase LEGO toys, they are still influenced by the brand through its movies, video games and interactive displays in stores.

Learning becomes the next part of the hierarchy presented in figure 2 and is a ‘stage whereby the consumer remembers the marketing message by storing it in memory’ (Evans, et al, 2006, p29.). As learning is an evolving process that is influenced by experience, as we are exposed to new stimuli and receive feedback our behaviour towards a brand and product may change (Solomon et al, 2013). Psychologists who study learning have developed a number of theories to explain how we learn. There are two main approaches to behavioural learning. The first is classical conditioning, which occurs by associating a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to get a particular response. The transfer of meaning between the two explains why ‘made up’ brand names can exert such powerful effects on consumers. This is exactly what LEGO has done with its logo. The bold letters and bright red, yellow and white colours in its logo leap out at consumers and easily attract the attention of a young child. Now whenever consumers see these colours together, they associate the object with LEGO.

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Using examples and the theory of consumer behaviour we can see why LEGO is one of the most powerful brands in the world. The company have invested a lot of time and money exposing its products to both adults and children and as such has created a positive perception amongst its consumers due to the creativity of these campaigns. Nevertheless it is important to note that due to the rise of social media and online blogs, it is harder for businesses to count on traditional marketing strategies to persuade customer purchases. This is because a recent report of the Opinion Research Corporation found that ‘84% of Americans purchases are influenced by online customer generated product reviews’ (Eldon, 2013, p.215). As a result companies must work harder to develop brand loyalty through the delivery of a brand story and excellent customer service. This is exactly what LEGO have done through its marketing activities, and is why they have outperformed rival toy maker Mattel, in terms of revenue and profit (Maciorowski & Maciorowski, 2015).

Attitude

The definition proposed by (Fishbein & Ajzen, p.6) suggests that attitude is a ‘learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner in relation to some object.’ It is one of the most influential factors on consumer behaviour, as a consumer’s attitude towards a brand or a product, ultimately affects what they intend to buy. As a result, companies like LEGO often spend a lot of time and money finding out what consumer attitudes towards their products are and seeking to change them where appropriate (Blyth, 2013). Since LEGO was founded, the company has always been very customer orientated. Founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen believed that the only way to create growth and success is by understanding consumers on a deep level, and delivering what they ask for (Andersen, 2015). This has essentially allowed LEGO to influence the attitudes of its consumers, by better catering to their needs and desires. Additionally the changes LEGO have made to their marketing activities over the years show how the company have considered the impact of attitudes on their performance.

Attitude is thought to comprise of three main components: affect, behaviour and cognitions. Together,