As of February 15, 2015, The LEGO Group officially replaced Ferrari as Brand Finance's "most powerful brand in the world". For nearly 70 years, the toy company based out of Billund, Denmark has brought creativity, playful education, and overall joy to millions of children (and adults) around the world to the point that the distinctive Lego brick has become one of the most iconic toys of the past century. However, these small plastic bricks have not only become iconic due to them being near-ubiquitously recognized, but also for the hefty price tag which comes with the model sets one can find in nearly every store with a toy section.
For years, many people have wondered how these small pieces of colored plastic could possibly warrant the comparatively massive price tag each set holds (Larger sets go for anywhere between $60-$120) while at the same time not really considering the fact that people still continue to pay these hefty amounts as they have for decades. For starters, the LEGO Group certainly had perfectionist beginnings, to the point that the original founder and creator of the now multi-billion dollar company, Ole Kirk Christiansen, had a personal motto of "der bedste er ikke for godt" which translates to "only the best is good enough"-- a motto which his son made into a sign and hung on the wall of his father's workshop.
While it may not be inherently obvious to the average consumer, LEGO most definitely has continued to follow this motto for decades based on the staggering reliability of their product. In fact, for some kind of comparison, a head of brand strategy for Interbrand (one of the world's leading companies for brand consulting) was quoted as saying, "If you ever looked at a MEGA Bloks set, and then you looked at a LEGO set, you would definitely spend the extra money." In an article for Daily Finance. Regardless of MEGA Bloks being perhaps the closest contender to LEGO's success in the manufacture and sale of plastic brick model sets, LEGO is by-and-far the better product not only due to technical and aesthetic advantages, but also due to the almost unreal level of reliability and quality each individual Lego brick presents.
In a recent study, the LEGO Group was profiled for the methods of creation used to manufacture each plastic brick, and the results found that because each brick is made from the highest quality materials, factory studies claim that no brick has ever decomposed or released any chemical substances. But because LEGO uses such high quality materials (mostly petroleum based), the company must closely follow and adhere to the fluctuation of oil prices around the world, which makes Lego bricks similar to gold in terms of stock variations. To put the actual price into perspective, a study found that on average, each Lego brick in a set costs roughly 10.4 cents in US currency, a shocking amount when considering how small each brick in a set really is. Another reason for the bricks being so expensive comes as a result of the extremely expensive molds required to create the bricks in LEGO factories (a price which has not been revealed by the company, only stating that the molds are created in Germany). However, what truly makes many people willing to pay for the expensive sets is nostalgia.
Many parents do not mind paying $60+ for a toy set simply because they themselves were introduced to Lego's as children and now have disposable incomes of their own to be able to pass down the sense of wonder and creativity each Lego set brings to their own children. While Lego's are certainly expensive, it is because of the personal motto of their founder that they have now become the highest selling and most recognizable toy brand in the world, and it can be believed that they will not be losing this title any time soon.
