Re: [B]I would call that a good marketing decision.....[/link] von Ben® am 07. Juli 2004 09:21:44:


>Morning John,
>thanks for the info about the owner of the Santa Fe name rights. That has been new to me. We all know LEGO is somewhat short of money. To split a release into some subnews is a nice idea imho. Jake told they are going to present this new set at Brickfest®.

lol I don't think "BrickFest" trademark is registered (®) yet (BrickFest™:-)

I suppose it is already ready for presentation: maybe someone with knowledge should check Lego.com for already uploaded pictures. Often enough news came up like that in the past.
>I do wonder if this new set (if it really IS this diesel engine) comes with a name on the box (as the Santa Fe cars did). Jakes design of modern diesels is quite advanced (at least for a 6-wide "play train") but could still aim at both kids and AFOLs.

Good question. I bet it will be called "diesel locomotive".

>On topic of saving money, I still hope LEGO does not come with the idea to split the bricks to break down costs (make 2 sets out of one? - In most of all cases you see only one of 6 sides of bricks anyway....) To ruin the 80ies quality standards has been a hard enough hit right now.

I don't understand. Do you find the way the Santa Fe cars were marketed objectionable? Seems like a fine line between that method and "alternate model" as marketed in the past.

>SNOT rules the world!

Zweifellos:-)

-John

Re: [B]Re: I would call that a good marketing decision.....[/link] von John am 08. Juli 2004 03:19:56:


Moin alter SNOTter! (Slime on, John!)

lol I don't think "BrickFest" trademark is registered (®) yet (BrickFest™:-)

I knew about that, but did not find a code for the "TM" (and I supposed Larry reading this thread as well, and I know how serious he is about the trademark rights.....

My comment on splitting bricks into halves has been only some sarcasm about the fact that the LEGO company obviously split news to reduce cost (which was no bad idea) (**). At 1000steineland I learned from Tormod, that TLC is no longer willing to follow the "only the best is good enough for our kids" rule. He told me only a small handfull of customers (and I am among them) is willing to pay extra for extraordinary quality. So they followed market demands and decreased quality evidently to "hold" prices. With America as biggest market for LEGO® toys nowadays they produce only in a quality as requested there by the majority of customers. In average Europeans are much more critical in quality issues, but we are no longer the majority of customers. LEGO®-bricks of the 70ies (excluding the America-only-Samsonite stuff), 80ies and 90ies HAVE IN FACT HAD A HIGHER quality.

It is a hard lesson for me to learn this, but I have of course to face these facts. I am not happy about it, but I understand that LEGO as an international company has to react like this....

With friendly regards,

[link]http://www.fgltc.org/bwoabs/vitae/sign4ben.gif[/link]



I don't understand. Do you find the way the Santa Fe cars were marketed objectionable?

Absolutely not! That has been a terriffic idea. Market demands never would have been big enough for 5 different waggons - I was positively amazed, that LEGO did even 2 different sets. I love them and the "universal" idea behind the set design. Brad and James did a great job on these. Again the design lab (isn't that the very same group of individuums which invented bley?) made a bad mistake when they modified James perfect design and added studs at the bottom side of the cars....

(**)
In fact we got presented another "new" couple of sets: the new 4511 supplements (in "wrong" colour, which makes them a quite lame extra). Those sets did not cause eny excitement among us at all. Too pricy (35 Eur...40Eur?), too bley, too much kids style.


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