As a young girl, I'd scour the lego shelves to find a set that included a single female figure. I actually bought brown, black, and red clay to make wigs for some of my minifigs. I bought primarily castle lego, though I also had tons of completely generic "colored blocks with no theming" lego and farm lego, I bought castle and farm because they were more likely to have girl minifigs and cool animal minifigs. I even wrote a letter to Lego as a kid asking that they make a set of female minifigs that I could buy, so I'd have an equal number of figs of both genders.
Yes, technically a generic fig could be either gender, but once you have unique faces and hair, some of which are female, it becomes something you have to "add" to make a minifig female, and by default all others are male.
The current initiative is based on an idea that has some merit: sometimes girls like slightly different things than boys. Every girl I know who played lego had tons of castle. A lot of guys I know had castle too, but it was pretty much a given for a girl. A similar thing happens when it comes to color: I wanted legos in every single color, I was upset that there weren't purple legos... not because it's a girly color, but because I was building a gorram rainbow cannon, and it was missing a color! If I'm building a bunch of rival castles, I want color coded barding! I want red for the empire and blue for the republic! Etc. I don't remember many guys being as concerned with their inability to create a chromatically correct rainbow.
Something else they brought up in the original article is true, too: girls who are playing with lego do sometimes make one minifig their avatar. I know I did, and many of my female friends did too. I mixed and matched all the pieces I had access to to find the coolest costume, the coolest sword, my favorite horse and my favorite dragon, and they all belonged to the bandit queen.
Lego has taken these two things that are actually true: there are some patterns that indicate things that girls like more, and girls tend to like having avatars... and reaches a crappy solution. I would have loved to have a set that included a bunch of customizable hair and outfits and swords and magic staves and all that stuff to improve the intricate, multi-generational drama that was playing out in my ever-expanding kingdom. I would have liked sets themed more to my interests: haunted mansions, unicorns and pegasi, dinosaurs, and yes, even awesome towns full of houses and stores.
The research in the article revealed something: girls care about colors, customization, and attention to detail. Then they made what I think was a bad call: instead of including color variety and customization variety to the universal line, they swept these innovations off into their own little non-size-compatible branch line, which frustrates the crap out of me.
Cultural Geek Girl on
Buttoneer, Brigadeer, and Keeper of the Book of Wil Wheaton.
Triwizard Drinking Tournament - '09 !Hufflepuff unofficial conscript, '10 !Gryffindor
Nerd blog at culturalgeekgirl.com
Seems like a missed opportunity for sure. Not making your kit inter-operable has upsides, but in this case I think they're going to be outweighed by the loss in sales.
The Pink Aisle works because of the absence of boy toys there. Girls and their parents gravitate towards there because they know everything on that row of shelves is 'appropriate' for girls. Having a whole wall of doe-eyed, pink, smiling things staring out at the customer has to have some kind of hypnotic quality or else toy stores wouldn't do it.
I want to know what happens when you break up the Pink Aisle and put girl toys in random places around the store. Barbie dolls next to the GI JOEs. My Little Pony next to the Hot Wheels.
Main thing is that you have to spend more time in the store as a consumer, and argue a lot more with your vendors about facing and product placement as a retailer. It's not like Target gets to decide on its own where all that stuff goes on the shelf with no input from Hasbro, etc.
This thread inspired me to take a walk up the local Walmart Lego aisle... I have no idea why some of these sets would be at all challenging to market to girls.
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
Seems like a missed opportunity for sure. Not making your kit inter-operable has upsides, but in this case I think they're going to be outweighed by the loss in sales.
Spool's got an interesting point. Other issues aside, you know the different types of Lego kits will become mixed together (such is the fate of all Lego) and then, well. Oversize girl figures and/or dwarf-men regulars. This'll be used to horrible effect in seven years time.
My bit on all this is my least favorite societal word: Heteronormativity. That's essentially the ongoing mapping of assumed gender roles in society, wherein lots and lots of things that are not intrinsically gender-assigned somehow get an arbitrary nod one way or the other. Or the third way, now, wherein it's okay to do some things the opposite sex used to do-if you're gay, that is.
Lego can't exactly be faulted in this instance. This kind of decision making in toyland isn't exactly new. It sells, and it's gonna continue to sell. Now, you could draw some criticism with the extent to which Lego has managed to court so many big licenses lately (Marvel, DC, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, etc) that Lego shouldn't really be needing to scrape to this level. But someone got the marks for advancing this idea. Good or ill, it's definitely something they haven't tried before...I remember years back they had some girl-oriented sets under the name of Belleville. I'm not sure how well they did, but they were completely compatible like Lego should be.
FactorySquirrelMarceline's HenchmanLand of OooRegistered Userregular
As I said in the LEGO thread, the inventor set really appeals to me; I plan on getting one soon.
Most of me feels weird about the disparity in design between the regular minifigures and the Friends minifigures. The Friends minifigures look slightly more like humans.
Holy crap, I've got the LEGO website open in another tab, and I'm kind of drawn to the design studio as well. I could put Twilight Sparkle in the lab and Rarity in the studio... I might get yelled at for mentioning ponies, but to me they're kind of central to the topic at hand.
"That man is playing Galaga! He thought we wouldn't notice. But we did."
Seriously, this log cabin looks awesome. Customizable house, campfire for girls or boys that want to cook, a boat, the works. Add 5-10 bucks to price to throw in a girl minifig and a bunch of camping accessories (since they say girls appreciate that )
I was raised by hippy do your own thing type parents, so I was all ready to be super pissed at LEGO for being all over gendered, until I read that bit from the company. There's some very good positive bits in there.
Then I read Cultural Geek Girl's post and I went, "God dammit LEGO, why didn't you just hire this lady as a consultant and then get it right!"
My boys' and their as yet theoretical younger sister's toys are all going to be mixed up and played with, gender normative be damned.
In light of this discussion, I loved it when this old advertisement from 1981 came back into the debate:
And my (hopeful) daughter will have a very geek-normative upbringing, starting with a plush blue dalek in her crib.
I didn't know Conan O'Brien was a child model.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I don't really get why the town sets would not appeal to girls, but I see nothing wrong with this marketing strategy. The part about making characters with stories and backgrounds similiar to American girl dolls seems like a potential gold mine.
Also, these look like nice, well thought out Lego sets that cover a lot of thematic ground which has been neglected by Lego in recent years. I mean, there should be more than a police station and a rocket ship in a town, but that seems to be the only kind of set they have produced in recent years in that line. . .
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Hrmmm. I would have to see sales numbers before I make a judgement. If the sales figures show they have a larger following of girls and are Legos are selling like hot cakes because of gender stereotyping then, Lego made the correct move. Creating toys nobody buys is stupid business. If gender stereotyping sells a lot more Lego blocks then that is what Lego does.
I don't really get why the town sets would not appeal to girls, but I see nothing wrong with this marketing strategy. The part about making characters with stories and backgrounds similiar to American girl dolls seems like a potential gold mine.
Also, these look like nice, well thought out Lego sets that cover a lot of thematic ground which has been neglected by Lego in recent years. I mean, there should be more than a police station and a rocket ship in a town, but that seems to be the only kind of set they have produced in recent years in that line. . .
This is true, but I do think it would be a better idea to broaden the entire scope, rather than making a 'girl line'.
Hrmmm. I would have to see sales numbers before I make a judgement. If the sales figures show they have a larger following of girls and are Legos are selling like hot cakes because of gender stereotyping then, Lego made the correct move. Creating toys nobody buys is stupid business. If gender stereotyping sells a lot more Lego blocks then that is what Lego does.
Turns out, profit and ethical motives can conflict. Funny. And I would like to point out I'm a fairly fiscally conservative mother fucker, bit the idea that it's tge right thing to do just because it sells is... silly.
"More fish for Kunta!"
--LeVar Burton
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
An ex-gf of mine from way back played blood angels. Maybe with twilight and all the other vampire shit, they would appeal to lots of girls? Dante already "sparkles" in his copper toned armor . . .
Seems like a missed opportunity for sure. Not making your kit inter-operable has upsides, but in this case I think they're going to be outweighed by the loss in sales.
Who said they're not interoperable? As far as I can tell they work together perfectly well.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Seems like a missed opportunity for sure. Not making your kit inter-operable has upsides, but in this case I think they're going to be outweighed by the loss in sales.
Who said they're not interoperable? As far as I can tell they work together perfectly well.
Agreed. It looks like only the mini figs are different, which doesn't matter for building.
Honestly, I think what bugs me the most is that they created new minifigures for girls. Now, I am not against new and unique minifigures as an idea and it is something they have been doing to great success recently (see the ridiculously amazing Collectible Minifigure series, or the new Atlantis line). What bugs me is what Cultural Geek Girl said:
The research in the article revealed something: girls care about colors, customization, and attention to detail. Then they made what I think was a bad call: instead of including color variety and customization variety to the universal line, they swept these innovations off into their own little non-size-compatible branch line, which frustrates the crap out of me.
Before people say "BUT THEY ARE SIZE COMPATIBLE"
Yes, I know. Don't forget who you are talking to- I was the one who created the current LEGO thread.
My point is this- the interesting molds and characters that LEGO has been doing up until this point still fit their "Image" as far as minifigures went.
Compare these images:
The "Robot" from the collectible minifigure line
A side-by side of one of the "Friends" figures with the "archetypal" minifig:
This image comes from a blog which does a mini-review of one of the sets. This review is way more "mechanical" in the sense that it talks about the points of articulation on the figure et cetera, but it does have a short history of LEGO's past "girl's" sets, as well as this amazing image:
My point is this- I would really rather that LEGO had, when attempting to market to girls, resculpted the original minifig style and done a once-over with the color scheme, instead of making a very clearly "Doll-like" minifigure. This isn't even a case similar to the LEGO dwarves or children, where the figure is simply shorter, or the Hagrid figure which is much taller than normal. This new figure is completely different, and it just doesn't make sense.
Well, it does, but not in any way that makes me happy.
Your market research shows that females want more colors, more customization of hair and clothes? You already have dual-painted heads on several lines (with two different expressions), why not have one with makeup and without, as well as include a few more hair pieces into the sets, and maybe some regular legs as well as the "dress" piece you created for the Cleopatra in your collectible minifigure line?
What LEGO did here frustrates me because until now, LEGO sets weren't as explicitly gendered. Sure, they had a lot of "typically" male-centered sets, but now (as they did when they launched Belleville), they have sent a message that all the other LEGO sets until this new one were for boys and not girls.
In my day legos were just primary colored bricks and were as gender neutral as you could get. As far as I'm concerned Lego jumped the shark when they moved away from selling play building materials and started selling kits to build highly specific things. This is just the latest move along that direction, and it isn't even the most silly.
Hrmmm. I would have to see sales numbers before I make a judgement. If the sales figures show they have a larger following of girls and are Legos are selling like hot cakes because of gender stereotyping then, Lego made the correct move. Creating toys nobody buys is stupid business. If gender stereotyping sells a lot more Lego blocks then that is what Lego does.
Turns out, profit and ethical motives can conflict. Funny. And I would like to point out I'm a fairly fiscally conservative mother fucker, bit the idea that it's tge right thing to do just because it sells is... silly.
It's not their right to do it because it sells. It is their duty and objective. A businesses primary purpose is to make money. The business version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs has the base line being make money, if a business doesn't make money it ceases to exist, the next line is follow the law, the second to top line is follow social norms and the very top line is act ethically. TGE has to make a profit, and if you listen to the interview he doesn't lie. He says paraphrase, we want to get our product in the hands of girls. We have spent a lot of money to find out how to do that and we are going to follow the route that puts Lego into as many female hands as we can.
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Alfred J. Kwakis it because you were insultedwhen I insulted your hair?Registered Userregular
edited February 2012
it's pretty easy to see why the new style might be more appealing to young girls
Alfred J. Kwak on
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I think what a lot of people are missing is the fact that people who frequently engage in buying gender-centric toys for their children are totally okay with toys reinforcing societal gender norms.
A lot of dads don't go out and buy their young son a BB gun because he thinks it's a safe toy for a 5-year old to have, he gives his kid a gun out of the misguided belief that somehow these things are magical and will keep his boy from catching "the gay."
In my day legos were just primary colored bricks and were as gender neutral as you could get. As far as I'm concerned Lego jumped the shark when they moved away from selling play building materials and started selling kits to build highly specific things. This is just the latest move along that direction, and it isn't even the most silly.
Nah, the kits are really great. They get you cool unique pieces and give kids direction. Some kids need a little inspiration and a starting off point.
Mostly in my experience, they build the thing according to the plans first and then they mix and match it with stuff from other sets and start modifying the hell out of it.
I think what a lot of people are missing is the fact that people who frequently engage in buying gender-centric toys for their children are totally okay with toys reinforcing societal gender norms.
A lot of dads don't go out and buy their young son a BB gun because he thinks it's a safe toy for a 5-year old to have, he gives his kid a gun out of the misguided belief that somehow these things are magical and will keep his boy from catching "the gay."
Like it's a virus spread by glitter.
It's silly to think people do this consciously. They buy "boy toys" because those are toys for boys. They don't think about it at all.
As to the OP, I don't see the big issue. They are trying to get girls to play Lego by focusing on things (most) girls (according to their research) like better.
Hrmmm. I would have to see sales numbers before I make a judgement. If the sales figures show they have a larger following of girls and are Legos are selling like hot cakes because of gender stereotyping then, Lego made the correct move. Creating toys nobody buys is stupid business. If gender stereotyping sells a lot more Lego blocks then that is what Lego does.
Turns out, profit and ethical motives can conflict. Funny. And I would like to point out I'm a fairly fiscally conservative mother fucker, bit the idea that it's tge right thing to do just because it sells is... silly.
It's not their right to do it because it sells. It is their duty and objective. A businesses primary purpose is to make money. The business version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs has the base line being make money, if a business doesn't make money it ceases to exist, the next line is follow the law, the second to top line is follow social norms and the very top line is act ethically. TGE has to make a profit, and if you listen to the interview he doesn't lie. He says paraphrase, we want to get our product in the hands of girls. We have spent a lot of money to find out how to do that and we are going to follow the route that puts Lego into as many female hands as we can.
Wow is there a ton of fail here.
To start with, Maslow's hierarchy is crap.
Next, this logic explicitly endorses illegal behavior as long as it's the line between red and black. That is astonishingly unethical.
"More fish for Kunta!"
--LeVar Burton
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
What LEGO did here frustrates me because until now, LEGO sets weren't as explicitly gendered. Sure, they had a lot of "typically" male-centered sets, but now (as they did when they launched Belleville), they have sent a message that all the other LEGO sets until this new one were for boys and not girls.
That is all I have to say about this, I think
I don't think they sent that message at all, I think you arrived at that message on your own.
If they do some market research and find that their fairly gender neutral stuff wasn't selling to girls, what choice do they have but make "girl" oriented stuff?
I mean, other than throw their hands up in the air and assume bringing LEGO to the majority of girls was impossible.
BSoB on
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Let me guess, you think the free market would work perfectly too if government would just leave it alone.
What an odd thing to say. However my statement is fact, which you are not disputing, which means your trying to attack me with implications of political leaning. Ad hominem at its finest.
Let me guess, you think the free market would work perfectly too if government would just leave it alone.
What an odd thing to say. However my statement is fact, which you are not disputing, which means your trying to attack me with implications of political leaning. Ad hominem at its finest.
I'm not seeing disagreement. You believe that any enterprise that doesn't benefit society as a whole would fail. This is demonstrably false.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Let me guess, you think the free market would work perfectly too if government would just leave it alone.
What an odd thing to say. However my statement is fact, which you are not disputing, which means your trying to attack me with implications of political leaning. Ad hominem at its finest.
I'm not seeing disagreement. You believe that any enterprise that doesn't benefit society as a whole would fail. This is demonstrably false.
And this is a straw man, I believe that a business that is not profitable will fail, or should fail.
If I ever have a daughter, and she gets into pink and pretty pretty princess stuff, more power to her.
But if she wants to spend her free time watching Battlestar and collecting action figures instead, that's just as cool by me. On the other hand, having a son who started taking a liking to dolls might be harder to explain away.
...
What's a dalek?
Is Battlestar really appropriate for a little kid?
Let me guess, you think the free market would work perfectly too if government would just leave it alone.
What an odd thing to say. However my statement is fact, which you are not disputing, which means your trying to attack me with implications of political leaning. Ad hominem at its finest.
I'm not seeing disagreement. You believe that any enterprise that doesn't benefit society as a whole would fail. This is demonstrably false.
And this is a straw man, I believe that a business that is not profitable will fail, or should fail.
Profitable =/= beneficial to society. In fact it can actually be very detrimental to society.
Let me guess, you think the free market would work perfectly too if government would just leave it alone.
What an odd thing to say. However my statement is fact, which you are not disputing, which means your trying to attack me with implications of political leaning. Ad hominem at its finest.
I'm not seeing disagreement. You believe that any enterprise that doesn't benefit society as a whole would fail. This is demonstrably false.
And this is a straw man, I believe that a business that is not profitable will fail, or should fail.
Profitable =/= beneficial to society. In fact it can actually be very detrimental to society.
See: Taken.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Let me guess, you think the free market would work perfectly too if government would just leave it alone.
What an odd thing to say. However my statement is fact, which you are not disputing, which means your trying to attack me with implications of political leaning. Ad hominem at its finest.
I'm not seeing disagreement. You believe that any enterprise that doesn't benefit society as a whole would fail. This is demonstrably false.
And this is a straw man, I believe that a business that is not profitable will fail, or should fail.
Profitable =/= beneficial to society. In fact it can actually be very detrimental to society.
If I ever have a daughter, and she gets into pink and pretty pretty princess stuff, more power to her.
But if she wants to spend her free time watching Battlestar and collecting action figures instead, that's just as cool by me. On the other hand, having a son who started taking a liking to dolls might be harder to explain away.
...
What's a dalek?
Is Battlestar really appropriate for a little kid?
Posts
Yes, technically a generic fig could be either gender, but once you have unique faces and hair, some of which are female, it becomes something you have to "add" to make a minifig female, and by default all others are male.
The current initiative is based on an idea that has some merit: sometimes girls like slightly different things than boys. Every girl I know who played lego had tons of castle. A lot of guys I know had castle too, but it was pretty much a given for a girl. A similar thing happens when it comes to color: I wanted legos in every single color, I was upset that there weren't purple legos... not because it's a girly color, but because I was building a gorram rainbow cannon, and it was missing a color! If I'm building a bunch of rival castles, I want color coded barding! I want red for the empire and blue for the republic! Etc. I don't remember many guys being as concerned with their inability to create a chromatically correct rainbow.
Something else they brought up in the original article is true, too: girls who are playing with lego do sometimes make one minifig their avatar. I know I did, and many of my female friends did too. I mixed and matched all the pieces I had access to to find the coolest costume, the coolest sword, my favorite horse and my favorite dragon, and they all belonged to the bandit queen.
Lego has taken these two things that are actually true: there are some patterns that indicate things that girls like more, and girls tend to like having avatars... and reaches a crappy solution. I would have loved to have a set that included a bunch of customizable hair and outfits and swords and magic staves and all that stuff to improve the intricate, multi-generational drama that was playing out in my ever-expanding kingdom. I would have liked sets themed more to my interests: haunted mansions, unicorns and pegasi, dinosaurs, and yes, even awesome towns full of houses and stores.
The research in the article revealed something: girls care about colors, customization, and attention to detail. Then they made what I think was a bad call: instead of including color variety and customization variety to the universal line, they swept these innovations off into their own little non-size-compatible branch line, which frustrates the crap out of me.
Triwizard Drinking Tournament - '09 !Hufflepuff unofficial conscript, '10 !Gryffindor
Nerd blog at culturalgeekgirl.com
Main thing is that you have to spend more time in the store as a consumer, and argue a lot more with your vendors about facing and product placement as a retailer. It's not like Target gets to decide on its own where all that stuff goes on the shelf with no input from Hasbro, etc.
Spool's got an interesting point. Other issues aside, you know the different types of Lego kits will become mixed together (such is the fate of all Lego) and then, well. Oversize girl figures and/or dwarf-men regulars. This'll be used to horrible effect in seven years time.
My bit on all this is my least favorite societal word: Heteronormativity. That's essentially the ongoing mapping of assumed gender roles in society, wherein lots and lots of things that are not intrinsically gender-assigned somehow get an arbitrary nod one way or the other. Or the third way, now, wherein it's okay to do some things the opposite sex used to do-if you're gay, that is.
Lego can't exactly be faulted in this instance. This kind of decision making in toyland isn't exactly new. It sells, and it's gonna continue to sell. Now, you could draw some criticism with the extent to which Lego has managed to court so many big licenses lately (Marvel, DC, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, etc) that Lego shouldn't really be needing to scrape to this level. But someone got the marks for advancing this idea. Good or ill, it's definitely something they haven't tried before...I remember years back they had some girl-oriented sets under the name of Belleville. I'm not sure how well they did, but they were completely compatible like Lego should be.
I'll leave you with this:
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/Chess-For-Girls/1357683
Most of me feels weird about the disparity in design between the regular minifigures and the Friends minifigures. The Friends minifigures look slightly more like humans.
Holy crap, I've got the LEGO website open in another tab, and I'm kind of drawn to the design studio as well. I could put Twilight Sparkle in the lab and Rarity in the studio... I might get yelled at for mentioning ponies, but to me they're kind of central to the topic at hand.
Seriously, this log cabin looks awesome. Customizable house, campfire for girls or boys that want to cook, a boat, the works. Add 5-10 bucks to price to throw in a girl minifig and a bunch of camping accessories (since they say girls appreciate that )
Then I read Cultural Geek Girl's post and I went, "God dammit LEGO, why didn't you just hire this lady as a consultant and then get it right!"
My boys' and their as yet theoretical younger sister's toys are all going to be mixed up and played with, gender normative be damned.
--LeVar Burton
I didn't know Conan O'Brien was a child model.
Also, these look like nice, well thought out Lego sets that cover a lot of thematic ground which has been neglected by Lego in recent years. I mean, there should be more than a police station and a rocket ship in a town, but that seems to be the only kind of set they have produced in recent years in that line. . .
This is true, but I do think it would be a better idea to broaden the entire scope, rather than making a 'girl line'.
Turns out, profit and ethical motives can conflict. Funny. And I would like to point out I'm a fairly fiscally conservative mother fucker, bit the idea that it's tge right thing to do just because it sells is... silly.
--LeVar Burton
An ex-gf of mine from way back played blood angels. Maybe with twilight and all the other vampire shit, they would appeal to lots of girls? Dante already "sparkles" in his copper toned armor . . .
Who said they're not interoperable? As far as I can tell they work together perfectly well.
Agreed. It looks like only the mini figs are different, which doesn't matter for building.
Before people say "BUT THEY ARE SIZE COMPATIBLE"
Yes, I know. Don't forget who you are talking to- I was the one who created the current LEGO thread.
My point is this- the interesting molds and characters that LEGO has been doing up until this point still fit their "Image" as far as minifigures went.
Compare these images:
The "Robot" from the collectible minifigure line
A side-by side of one of the "Friends" figures with the "archetypal" minifig:
This image comes from a blog which does a mini-review of one of the sets. This review is way more "mechanical" in the sense that it talks about the points of articulation on the figure et cetera, but it does have a short history of LEGO's past "girl's" sets, as well as this amazing image:
My point is this- I would really rather that LEGO had, when attempting to market to girls, resculpted the original minifig style and done a once-over with the color scheme, instead of making a very clearly "Doll-like" minifigure. This isn't even a case similar to the LEGO dwarves or children, where the figure is simply shorter, or the Hagrid figure which is much taller than normal. This new figure is completely different, and it just doesn't make sense.
Well, it does, but not in any way that makes me happy.
Your market research shows that females want more colors, more customization of hair and clothes? You already have dual-painted heads on several lines (with two different expressions), why not have one with makeup and without, as well as include a few more hair pieces into the sets, and maybe some regular legs as well as the "dress" piece you created for the Cleopatra in your collectible minifigure line?
What LEGO did here frustrates me because until now, LEGO sets weren't as explicitly gendered. Sure, they had a lot of "typically" male-centered sets, but now (as they did when they launched Belleville), they have sent a message that all the other LEGO sets until this new one were for boys and not girls.
That is all I have to say about this, I think
If your nephew doesn't freak about being given "girl's LEGO sets" when you get them for him, either you or his parents did something right.
I know I would have been upset about getting "girl's LEGO sets" until about...like last year!*
*a joke
A lot of dads don't go out and buy their young son a BB gun because he thinks it's a safe toy for a 5-year old to have, he gives his kid a gun out of the misguided belief that somehow these things are magical and will keep his boy from catching "the gay."
Like it's a virus spread by glitter.
Nah, the kits are really great. They get you cool unique pieces and give kids direction. Some kids need a little inspiration and a starting off point.
Mostly in my experience, they build the thing according to the plans first and then they mix and match it with stuff from other sets and start modifying the hell out of it.
It's silly to think people do this consciously. They buy "boy toys" because those are toys for boys. They don't think about it at all.
As to the OP, I don't see the big issue. They are trying to get girls to play Lego by focusing on things (most) girls (according to their research) like better.
I can't bring myself to be at all offended by more realistic looking figures and Olivia's Inventor's Workshop.
Wow is there a ton of fail here.
To start with, Maslow's hierarchy is crap.
Next, this logic explicitly endorses illegal behavior as long as it's the line between red and black. That is astonishingly unethical.
--LeVar Burton
Let me guess, you think the free market would work perfectly too if government would just leave it alone.
I don't think they sent that message at all, I think you arrived at that message on your own.
If they do some market research and find that their fairly gender neutral stuff wasn't selling to girls, what choice do they have but make "girl" oriented stuff?
I mean, other than throw their hands up in the air and assume bringing LEGO to the majority of girls was impossible.
I'm not seeing disagreement. You believe that any enterprise that doesn't benefit society as a whole would fail. This is demonstrably false.
Is Battlestar really appropriate for a little kid?
Profitable =/= beneficial to society. In fact it can actually be very detrimental to society.
See: Taken.