Building a brand out of bricks; Ruth Mortimer finds out how the stud-and-tube brick has gone from household object to fantasy films and discusses how the toy brand plans to win over indifferent older girls and move into the adult market. (Lego)

Brand Strategy, April, 2003 by Ruth Mortimer

Toys are a serious business for the Lego Company. More than 20 billion Lego bricks are produced a year and a Lego set is sold every seven seconds. The company acts as both a retailer and entertainer with four Legoland theme parks situated around the globe. Its action figure brand extension Bionicle has even been made into a Miramax feature film.

But a couple of years ago, things looked bleak for the only European player in the global toy company top ten. Poul Ploughmann, then executive vice president, claimed at the time that Lego had "lost focus" as one thousand employees were made redundant and the business recorded its second-ever loss of around 90m [pounds sterling]. The product range was a complicated mass of branded goods. Lego seemed to have forgotten how to...