Business has been so brisk at the world’s most profitable toymaker that Lego last year did something unusual: It began looking for ways to discourage customers from buying its products. The Danish company scaled back its advertising efforts amid a 25 percent rise in annual sales, according to Reuters. It simply couldn’t make enough toys to satiate demand in North America, and needed a break while it boosted capacity at its factories and increased its workforce by nearly 25 percent. “We feel we need to invest, to build some breathing space,” John Goodwin, Lego’s chief financial officer, told Reuters. Lego, a family-owned company founded in 1932, has enjoyed booming growth for decades. The company has released thousands of sets of its eponymous blocks, forging licensing deals with popular brands including Star Wars, Angry Birds and Disney Princesses. It has also taken on iconic architecture: A model of the U.S. Capitol building is for sale on Lego’s site for $99.99, while a White House set sells for $49.99.
A replica of the Ghostbusters firehouse, meanwhile, is listed for $349.99. The company’s dominance has also extended into the company’s six Legoland theme parks, 125 retail stores and dozens of video games. The Lego Movie, a full-length movie released in 2014, brought in $468.1 million at the box office. The company’s revenue has increased by an average of 15 percent a year in the past 12 years, according to Reuters. The efforts to quell demand seem to have worked — at least temporarily. Sales in the Americas remained flat during the first half of 2016, according to Reuters. (Revenue in Asia and Europe, meanwhile, continued to grow by double digits.) Overall, Lego’s revenue rose 11 percent to roughly $2.35 billion in the first half of the year, ahead of the $$1.83 billion reported by Mattel, the maker of Barbie. But executives at Lego are hoping to ramp up production in time for this year’s holiday season, Goodwin said: “We are working very closely with our retail partners to ensure that as we go into the important holiday season, the back half of 2016, that we’ve got all of the levers pulled to get back on the growth trajectory.”
The company is buildings its first factory in China, and is expanding existing plants in Mexico, Hungary and Denmark. Lego also hired 3,500 employees in the first half of the year, increasingly its workforce to 18,500, according to the Wall Street Journal. “In the past decade we have seen LEGO sales growth in the double digits year after year,” Goodwin said in a statement in October. “We are of course very excited about this development. [But] the high demand also puts a strain on our factories around the world.” Barbie’s other big image problem A tiny Lego version of Galileo rode on a NASA probe all the way to Jupiter American Girl’s pint-size antidote for its multimillion-dollar problemThe 2017 Budget speech has been built with bricks by the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Sciences (Gibs).Instead of only depicting numbers and figures, Gibs used innovation through Lego to illustrate the impact that this year’s Budget will have on South Africa’s diverse nation.
Gibs used its inner “master builder” and created an easy, original and understandable summary of the 2017 Budget using the brick-building toy. The video, framed through a TV news report, used Lego figurines, a parliament, some government buildings and even a newsroom - all built out of plastic Lego bricks in a bid to make the Budget more accessible to all South Africans. Lego props like fake money and even a safe were demonstrated to explain some of the figures announced during the long-awaited speech delivered by Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan on Wednesday. A yellow figure standing in the Lego parliament wearing glasses and a smart black suit with a silver tie represented Gordhan while MPs were dressed in plain black, different coloured smart suits, dungarees. Some were dressed in red, representing the EFF. Several buildings were built to represent the SA Social Security Agency, universities and even a farming area. They were used in the video as examples to summarise certain aspects of the speech, including the money that will be spent on social grants and NSFAS, as well as money that will be transferred to universities.
The farming scene built out of Lego used brown platforms, scarce vegetation and plastic Lego bones to highlight that food inflation continues to be high due to the drought. A Lego tourist figurine holding a camera also stood in front of what looked like Table Mountain and Cape Town built from a range of bricks, while the budget for tourism was explained. Part of the brilliance of the video was the diversity of Lego figurines used to represent all types of South Africans from varying backgrounds, from students, to the working class, middle-class, adults and children and the wealthy in the country. A fake bar and even a petrol station, all built creatively with colour and character from Lego, uses mock-alcohol and cars to illustrate scenes that represented the increase in the fuel levy and excise duty for tobacco and alcohol. The importance of State Owned Enterprises and the role they play in the private sector was also displayed, using well-built Lego hospitals, police stations, ambulances and police cars dealing with emergencies and criminals.
The video went viral across social media. Users praised Gibs, describing it as “brilliant” and “top stuff”.You can now enjoy the world's most immersive cinematic experience at the only IMAX in the Western Cape, now open at Capegate. IMAX takes viewing film to a complete new level. Featuring a floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall screen and IMAX's cutting edge projection and sound technology, you truly become part of the movie. Enjoy the ultimate movie experience at IMAX Capegate. Thursday, 2nd March 2017 Logan: The Wolverine (imax) LOGAN: THE WOLVERINE (IMAX)Show Times:Age Restriction:Length:Description:Director:Cast: FIST FIGHTShow Times:Genre:Age Restriction:Length:Description:Director:Cast: A DOG'S PURPOSE Show Times:Genre:Age Restriction:Length:Description:Director:Cast: Great Wall, The (3d Imax) GREAT WALL, THE (3D IMAX)Show Times:Genre:Age Restriction:Length:Description:Director:Cast: Great Wall, The [3d] GREAT WALL, THE [3D]Show Times:Genre:Age Restriction:Length:Description:Director:Cast: