Lego Friends: will it be a HIT or a MISS?

tamamahm

Amazon has such random pricing. At least two of those $10 Friends sets are currently marked down to $7.50. Not bad for a scorching hot new product line, eh?

Look again.
Those two sets marked to 7.50 are actually the two sets that retail for 5.99 at the Lego store.

They are actually marked up at Amazon.
Tammy

Odindusk

Sneaky Amazon. I didn't even know there were $6 sets in that line. $10 is the lowest tier of Friends sets at my local Target, so I assumed.

LegoChief

Amazon has such random pricing. At least two of those $10 Friends sets are currently marked down to $7.50. Not bad for a scorching hot new product line, eh?

Look again.
Those two sets marked to 7.50 are actually the two sets that retail for 5.99 at the Lego store.

They are actually marked up at Amazon.
Tammy

Yes, you are right Tammy. Those two sets are 5.99 at Target too, but as of today Toys R Us has marked the price up to 6.99 (they were 5.99 on Tuesday at TRU). Amazon has the highest price of all at 7.50.

starfire2

My husband likes the cafe. He likes the elements, not the girlie aspect of it.

herekittykitty

I just picked up the two $5.99 sets at Target today, and they're a huge hit with my daughter - without her even having opened the boxes yet (she has to earn them with good behavior before she actually gets them). She was beside herself about the little lego cupcakes. :-P (she's 5.5.)

drdavewatford

Amazon has such random pricing. At least two of those $10 Friends sets are currently marked down to $7.50. Not bad for a scorching hot new product line, eh?

Beware - the MRSP as quoted by Amazon is not always accurate. I think those 2 Friends sets allegedly discounted by 25% actually aren't.... The quoted MRSP is $10, but the real MRSP is actually $5.99 if I remember rightly. FYI the Amazon Bargain Watch system on Brickset uses the official LEGO MRSPs rather than the figure quoted on Amazon, so it's worth checking the Bargain Watch listing to ensure you're getting the deal you think you are....

poppypiesdad

Local toysrus only had one set left whicj was hidden behind a duplo set , being a bit taller saw the box demolished the display and got it for my 4 year old , happ that she had some girl lego we went searching for baseplates , but to no avail , so stopped off at local toy shop ( a bit more expensive but not huge and had almost a full set on the shelves( which were a bit less full and credit card a bit more full as we left) , she loves it and can use the standard bricks to extend her sets

JAmie

newbee

I can agree about stereotyping girls I encourage my daughter to play with all sorts of toys but my daughter although likes building the city set she played very differently than I have seen boys play. She may have built the sets to create the city but she mostly built them to play as a story line. Boys seem to build to see what they can build, not to say girls aren't as inventive I just have seen the imagination take a different direction. She was able to get the advantages of the skills that are often associated with playing with legos but she went off and got her little dolls she had from non-lego toys and created a story of them being saved or being the rescuer. Or she turned the fire station into a castle that the fire fighter would climb. I think the lego friends may be a more girl centric but I think in a good way if it encourages my daughter to play with legos all the better she is just not into people battling each other in combat roles. She wants to have her dolls interact on a lego built set. Now she has the opportunity to have lego people the fit with the sets.

tdhbr

I stopped in the Lego store with my 8-year-old son to buy a Friends set for my niece's 8th birthday (she's not much into Lego, but we're trying). My son looked long and hard at Ninjago, Architecture (really!), PotC, and expecially Dinos ... when we got to the Friends section, he wanted nothing to do with choosing one. I even suggested two, and asked which we should get - he just ignored them. So I picked the City Park Cafe. And this is a boy that is generally quite thoughtful and open-minded. Hopefully my niece will like it.

akunthita

Someone had to do it...(c;
But seriously; these guys did an excellent job! They should be hider by LEGO!...(c:
LEGO Friends undergo plastic surgery: http://thebrickblogger.com/2012/01/lego-friends-undergo-plastic-surgery/

Jenni

^ Awesome, not that my daughter will let me mess with her Friends.

We have a three-year-old friend whose mother took him to Target to look at big boy LEGO, he's moving up from Duplo, she couldn't get him past the Friends sets.

We've also just bought our first Friends sets to give as a birthday present to a school friend. I am really appreciating LEGO including Andrea so that we have someone the little girl may visually identify with. I don't know if she'll care but I'm glad the options there if she likes dolls that look a little bit like her.

ACWWGal2011

I'd call the CONCEPT of a girl aimed line a hit, but the friends is a miss.

It's all sterotypical girl likes which may be a hit with SOME kids, it's not for a lot of others and especially not for the ones trying to break down sterotype walls. If they'd subtract the girl colors, put in REAL minifigures, and have stuff like a doctors office, mechanic, and other "boy" type careeres; that would be the potential for a perfect girl line.

It reallys like that should of learned their lesson after 5 previous girl lines not working out.

Ma1234

ACWWGal2011 said:

I'd call the CONCEPT of a girl aimed line a hit, but the friends is a miss.

It's all sterotypical girl likes which may be a hit with SOME kids, it's not for a lot of others and especially not for the ones trying to break down sterotype walls. If they'd subtract the girl colors, put in REAL minifigures, and have stuff like a doctors office, mechanic, and other "boy" type careeres; that would be the potential for a perfect girl line.

It reallys like that should of learned their lesson after 5 previous girl lines not working out.

You might not like it and see it as a miss personally, but commercially, Friends is a major hit. Finally LEGO got it right.

gmpirate

ACWWGal2011 said:

it's not for a lot of others and especially not for the ones trying to break down sterotype walls.

Wow, guess the little girls in my family/neighborhood have it all wrong. They are out just being girls and doing what they want to do when they should really be out "breaking down Sterotype walls". Would you suggest dressing them in "boy" colors? or are there "neutral" colors that they should be aware of?

LostInTranslation

^ Agreed.

^^ "Doctors office" -> there's a vets office.
"Mechanic" -> there's an inventors workshop complete with tools.

I'm fed up of people saying the line is a fail and what Lego should have (not "should of", for the record) done. They did their research and followed up on what the results told them.

TLG are a business. If their research tells them girls want minidolls, they will use minidolls. If their research tells them pastel colours will sell, that's what they're going to sell. It's not TLG's job to "break down stereotype walls".

I personally can see your point, I would prefer minifigs in the sets. But I'm not the target market....

UKtsumi

I dont buy them for myself but my 10 year old and all her friends love the sets, I personally think the new series has too many "horse" based sets , but in a way it saves my pocket as I dont have to buy them!

bortan88

My 6yo loves the Friends line but my 8yo prefers HP and the Heroica games(although i still find her playing with the friends sets when I'm not looking). I myself as a 40yo male am a fan of the sets, especially the pastel colours although i have an issue with the lack of possibility of the minidolls. I can understand you cant have independently movable legs when you're wearing a skirt but having movable hands would have been good. I always imagine them pouring their drinks over their shoulders. My other concern is that there is only one male minidoll, what kind of weird society is Heartlake City? Did Peter sire all the children? Or is he just there as the token male to cook the barbeque and take out the rubbish?

LegoFanTexas

In my sample size of two (my 4 year old daughter and her 4 year old friend), Friends is a huge hit. She will sit there and dress up the dolls, play make-believe with them, make up stories about them...

She likes pink and purple, that is what she wants. We have all the sets stacked up in a row, she walks right over to the Friends sets and points to them. She'll sit on the couch with a sealed box set and hug it saying that she likes it and that it is "hers".

ACWWGal2011

LostInTranslation said:

^ Agreed.

^^ "Doctors office" -> there's a vets office.
"Mechanic" -> there's an inventors workshop complete with tools.

I'm fed up of people saying the line is a fail and what Lego should have (not "should of", for the record) done. They did their research and followed up on what the results told them.
blockquote>

Yea but a vets office filled with pink and other weird collers girls normally like plus unlike a doctors office, vet seems to be something as being a job GIRLS talk about wanting then a boy thing.

And there is an inventors workshop but it's a case of "it came thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisss close to being good". If they just would of not done the purple tools and had a better designed complete invention in the shop(the robot thing), it would of worked out.

And that research was most likely RIGGED. I do not believe that the results showing that girls prefer ladyfigs that are mostly imcompatible with lego minifigures over regular figures. And the color scheme is also questionable.

LegoFanTexas

^ Believe whatever you like, all the evidence that I've seen says that Friends is selling very well.

If it is selling well, then it is a success for TLG. It more or less stops there, from a business point of view.

Now, it might be a fail for you personally, and you're of course welcome to that opinion. If you think the sets suck, that is fine, by all means say so. But it sounds like you think the rest of us should agree with you, and I think by and large, we don't.

I don't think the sets are selling well just because they are pink and purple, the prior line, Belvelle, was pink and purple as well, and by all accounts it didn't do well at all. This line is well thought out, they gave the girls names, they have a good theme, and the sets are just well designed.

So they are minidolls instead of minifigs? Oh well, that seems to be working for them. Yes, I too would prefer minifigs, but life moves on.

DavidBrickley

My daughter loves them. She also loves Ninjago and City. I encourage play and creativity, Lego provides varied opportunites for this, so it's a win.I like the color schemes in the Friends line because I have more color options for MOCs, so another check in the win column.

The research was rigged? Who knows, who cares. There's enough research on either side of any issue that it all turns into noise. If kids don't want it, parents won't buy it. And it'll go away.

We can't wait to start getting the new sets!

LostInTranslation

"[It's] filled with pink and weird colours girls normally like..."
Erm, I'm missing your logic here. Your problem is that the sets are designed in colours girls actually seem to like??

In fact, your entire argument seems to make no logical sense.
If it was found that girls identify with a vet more than a doctor, why run counter to that finding? (and I don't agree with you that "doctor" is a male profession).
Why would the research be rigged? Lego will have looked at the results and made the decisions that will ensure the sets sell. Why would they decide to make minidolls, creating new moulds at great cost, if their research showed that their target market preferred minifigs?

LegoFanTexas

Just showed this thread to my wife... Her comment?

"Lego is not in the business of changing stereotypes, they are in the business of selling boxes of plastic bricks"

In that regard, I think they are doing pretty well.

LostInTranslation

^ Well said, @MrsDarthTexas :-)

drdavewatford

Like the sets or not, gender stereotyping or not, "too pastel" or not, the Friends theme has been an enormous commercial success, so LEGO clearly HAVE learned their lessons....

AFFOL_Shellz_Bellz

Friends sets have had 7+ months of exposure now and while I heard a bunch of outrage from those women who are trying to break stereotypes early on it was very short lived. As an afol who is eligible for medicare and mostly interested in city sets, modulars and the really big builds I am very impressed with the Friends sets and have all that have been released. Hopefully the line will be a lasting one and TLG will add more male figures as well as more variety in buildings. If they had been available when we started our layout our city would look much different!

tamamahm

My other concern is that there is only one male minidoll, what kind of weird society is Heartlake City?

I am actually not surprised by this. It is pretty much the same thing that AG does in most of it's other lines. All of Ninjago has one female character, and that is Nya. Lord of the Rings doesn't have any female.

I do wish that Lego would add more males to Friends, or females to other lines.


My girls liked the first wave of Friends. They have absolutely no interest in the second wave. They aren't interested in horses, and there seems to be a bit too much emphasis there. I am curious to see how Friends does with the second wave.


If they'd subtract the girl colors, put in REAL minifigures, and have stuff like a doctors office, mechanic, and other "boy" type careeres; that would be the potential for a perfect girl line.

I have to disagree with this.
The new minifigs is actually one of the big reasons that my girls are drawn to the sets. The girls actually do look 'realistic' in that they have clothes that are similar to many 10 year old girls, and they look like 10 year old girls developmentally, unlike Barbie who is a full grown woman with an unrealistic figure.

I don't understand why 'boy' careers would make this a perfect line for girls, and why is a doctor's office considered a boy career? My girls generally have no interest in City-type stuff, which looking at it globally is really is what Friends is. They don't want a mechanic or a police set, they don't want more city, but focused on girls.

The 'perfect' girl line for my girls was Harry Potter. It had a good number of females. It had an amazing story line. It was adventurous. The females were great role models. Hermione is a strong female character.
That is really what my girls want more of.

They want a line that has a large number of female and male minifigs.
They want a line that is fun or adventurous, but not simply focused on fighting and on vehicles.

They just really struggle finding any line like that, especially now that HP is phasing out.

My girls, though, are not who Lego is targeting with Friends.

Friends, is really targeting the girl that historically have had no interest in Lego. They are trying to find a way to pull those girls in. If they do, they increase their market, and create a new group to sell to. They did a ton of market research on what sells to that group.

For me, the big mistake that Lego has made, is that for the girls they do pull in, they haven't bothered to make any other 'gender-neutral' lines, like HP. When girls are done with Friends, and still want Lego, we are still back to the same issue of most lego lines focusing on
vehicles
fighting
highly male minfig heavy


Tammy

gmpirate

While my boy who just turned 10 says he would never buy a friends set, he still can admit they are very good sets. I think this type of sibling/family/friend approval from non-buyers of the Friends line is an important factor in the line's success. People feel more confident in their buying decisions when they have this type of support.

Redbullgivesuwind

"vet seems to be something as being a job GIRLS talk about wanting then a boy thing."


One of my male friends is a vet i'll let him know he is a girl :-D. And actually the medical profession is very female dominated. Most nurses are female and most of the doctors in the hospital where I work are women, as are the majority of the psyotheropists.

I wont buy the friends line its not aimed at me. But I do think Lego have done very well. My local toy shop always has a small gaggle of girls by the friends section and its often sold very quickly when it comes in. I would say it has been a massive success.

sadowsk1

I would have to say that the current sale at Walmart brought my attention to the Friends sets I really do like them. There are a lot of fun elements in them and I can appreciate the fun factor. My wife and I picked some up so that she has sets that she likes to play along with my sons Dino sets in the future. I also agree with the comment that Lego is in the business to make money and giving the people what they want. Why do any research if your going to do the opposite of what the majority of girls want?

pharmjod

I thought the sets were great from the beginning and I've got one of each put away for my now 10 month old to play with in several years. I realized the series is doing pretty well with girls in general though when I was working with some of the children at church. Part of the lesson we were doing involved asking the children if they had all the money in the world what would they do with it. The 4 girls in my group (2nd graders) all said they would buy all of the LEGO Friends sets (among other things). I was blown away.

kks

At BrickFair, one of the designers from TLG who has worked on the Friends line for four years very much insinuated that there would be more males in the near future, but she did say their testing showed that girls like playing with girl figures much more because they can relate to them. She also said that it has been a better success than expected and their team has grown from six to ten designers.

LegoFanTexas

^ Wow, 10 designers devoted to a single line? I'd expect that with Star Wars, City, and Ninjago, but Friends?

It must be doing very well... Not Ninjago well, but really well...

Perhaps this could become an ongoing series, just like City is for boys... (yes, yes, girls can play with City too, you know what I mean!)

monkey_roo

I kinda smile when I see this thread get a little action every so often. As most people seem to be saying, like the line or not it has sold and it has sold very, very well. I was at Legoland Windsor a few weeks ago at the start of the summer holidays and the shop was stacked with friends sets, I went back six days later (local, with annual pass) and there were no sets left in the shop. I assumed they were moving stuff around so I asked one of the attendants where the sets had gone to but was told that the shop had sold out of everything they had in six days and that was the general trend when they got a load of friends sets in they never stayed on the shelves long.
The title of this threshed is will friends Lego be a hit or a miss... It is a hit, end of story.

LegoFanTexas

^ What is interesting is that some places are selling out fast, others are not.

I suspect it is very specific as to where the sets are selling, since several people have reported stores are not moving stock.

The fact that they are almost never on sale is a really good sign however... I've got them all on my watchlist on Amazon and have yet to see a nice sale on them. Grr... :)

hleonffu

^ My local Walmart in CT had many of the sets on clearance. Most at 30% discount such as Olivia's Tree House for $13.00.

khmellymel

I don't get the colour scheme argument. Surely having more colours, regardless of if they are more "girly" or not is a better thing? To really want girls, or boys for that matter, to break stereotype, you should be able to do so regardless of if there's few pink blocks in the kit. Kids (and adults!) should be creative, and giving us a bigger colour palette facilitates that.

I dunno, maybe it's just me. People don't see me as a very stereotypical girl, but I don't see why there isn't room for dolls and pink and purple next to my greasy tool kit. In fact, I prefer if my tool box is pink!

BuriedinBricks

Yeah, I don't see Friends moving like crazy locally. My nearest Walmart was only cleared out after everything went on clearance. The Target I stopped by today had everything in stock, except for Olivia's House.

Regardless, I think the sets are nice and I know at least one of my nieces loves them at the age of five. Like it or not, little girls like pink and purple. If it gets them interested in LEGO it's doing its job.

tamamahm

I don't get the colour scheme argument

I see both sides.

The color argument is basically, it is yet another item focused at girls that they have made pink/purple. It's for girls, so slap on the pink. Barbie RV, never mind that bother genders might like it, let's make it pink, since it is for girls. Oh, let's add variety and we will go for.... Purple. ;-)

I understand both sides here. Companies do it because it sells. (What I have seen, though, is that by 8 and 9 many are beginning to outgrow everything being pink/purple.)

There is also a point at which is pink out there because it is popular or is pink popular because it is out there. It really is both and marketing/advertisement does impact the pinkarama fest that is out there. :-)

I don't fault Lego going with the pastel colors they chose. I do enjoy having some cool new colors. They did the research and probably found it sells. That is business and that is fine. They made the right dd idiom for their company.

As a parent of girls, though, I am personally tired of pink and purple and that so much is made in those colors. I have a kid that adores yellow and orange, and it is hard to find things in those colors.
Tammy

gmpirate

Lol, all the girl sections of toy departments are pink and purple. I assume its because it works :P

SilentMode

A lot of research was put into the theme, particularly with the minidolls, and IMO it's greatly paid off.