The Lego Group History

Lego is a line of plastic building blocks that are manufactured by The Lego Group. The company's main product, Lego, consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks and a wide array of other parts, including gears, figurines and even programmable computer bricks. Lego pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct objects; vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects.

The Lego Group began manufacturing Lego in 1949. Since then a global Lego culture has developed. Supporting movies, games, competitions, and six LEGOLAND amusement parks have been developed under the brand. As of July 2015, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced.

In February of 2015 Lego was named the worlds most powerful brand. The purpose of this presentation is to show how Lego became such a well known, successful brand.

The 1950’s

Lego was invented in 1949, and soon became globalized in the 1950’s, right from the start Lego was all about imagination, it was a peaceful, educational toy, which was made to be enjoyed by children of all ages and genders.

The 1950’s brought about many global events which Australia became involved in, however two of these were the Korean, and Vietnam wars, even in this time, the ads for Lego were only about what was important to the company, there are no signs of war, no guns or violence. The ads show children happily playing with Lego blocks together, again note that in the images, both boys and girls are depicted, this is a very gender neutral toy.

1960’s

The ads from the 60’s and 70’s are very similar to those from the 1950’s.

These ads depict children who are happy, and proud of what they managed to build. The ad on the far left is titled “Look what I built with LEGO!” this is what the little girl is saying to the reader, the ad then reinforces the idea of educational play with the line “and look at the look on her face, that’s pride smiling” These ads all stay with the same themes of a gender neutral, educational toy.

1980’s and 90’s

The 80’s and 90’s brought many marvels in modern technology, cell phones, new video games and television meant that Lego had to change it’s techniques. The people wanted modern, so modern was what they got, the ads from the 1980’s and 90’s depict Lego as being a new, modern toy, great for the minds of modern children. Even with the change of style, the main themes of the ads remain consistent, Lego is still all about imagination, and education, for both boys and girls.