Brickset Bonus Ball Bonanza - Backfired Edition (19th Nov Draw)

iso3200

Brickset Bonus Ball Bonanza - UK Lottery Draw 19th November 2016

As @bendybadger is prancing around Europe somewhere I've agreed to fill his paws again with this weeks draw. We're playing for another polybag kindly donated by @SumoLego - #5002948 C3PO

If any new people have recently joined and wonder what this is, it's simple. Answer a question, and get a number based on your post in order between 1 and 59 for the UK national lottery bonus ball.  If your number gets drawn on Saturday night you win the prize.  If you don't make the first 59 replies, well there's always next week to be a little quicker.

For this weeks question, consider this. You are the head of marketing for a global brand, and you are opening a new flagship store in a major city. You have a fabulous mascot and to celebrate the opening, you are giving away a toy version of this mascot as a free gift to the first shoppers at the store - strictly one per person. It doesn't cost much to produce and you'll need to balance the *exclusivity* with the *availabilty* to make people attend. If you make too many they will not be considered exclusive. If there are not enough, then people will cry foul!

The question is this. How many would you make available for the opening weekend?

I've thought long and hard about this (well for a few minutes anyway). I love the collecting aspect of my hobby just as much as opening and building things. I like the thrill of the chase to find a rare item and the satisfaction of obtaining it, but I am realistic in that I have a ceiling price for what I think is sensible to pay or trade for something I really want. So a store opening where you can get an exclusive for spending x amount of £/$ usually works well for me as it delivers in both areas.

Well now, I'm not thinking of anything in particular, but I reckon 5000 of an exclusive item is quite a good hearty number. Do you know I'd probably even listen to public demand and issue that same mascot in a fashion where everyone could buy one at a later date. Perhaps a slightly different version. I dunno, with a subtle print change or packaged with a special accessory or included within a mini-set. That way collectors can still have an exclusive packaged and numbered edition and everyone else can play happily ever after.

*All events depicted in this question are entirely hypothetical. Any similarity to actual events past or present are purely coincidental.

This isn't really intended to be a rant thread or a discussion thread, it's all about numbers. Just poking a bit of fun perhaps though ;-)

Fire away people... How many?

messy

One, randomly put in a bag, without telling anybody!

William_Townsley

Do a raffle everyone that makes a purchase throughout the weekend gets entered. You get one raffle entry for every purchase over £35 

TheMaker37

42 because it is the  "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything"

Dawn

Probably between 500 and 1000 with a serial number on the packaging like it is for Lester but then also have the same minifig in a regular polybag available worldwide.

That would satisfy both the hard core and casual collector.

leetshoe

1000

vizzitor

I'd say about 100. They can only be given to the first 500 children who then have to open the package in the shop.

ricecake

1138 in exclusive packaging, with widespread availability later in non-exclusive packaging.

eggshen

I would say that 1000 would be about right. Then I would try to put some rules in place to make sure you could only get 1.

snowhitie

Hm, what a curiously detailed situation.

I'd go for 10000 with everyone who enters that has a VIP card gets a chance to get one of the exclusive sealed in a bag with a golden umbrella. You get one per purchase (with a minimum spend of 55 pounds but if you come with 2 kids you get a gingerbread house as well.

gmonkey76

1500 for a 3 day grand opening event. 500 a day for the first 500 customers, and if any leftover then on the 4th day 1 per customer until they run out.

CCC

99 and given to children only and make the opening day on a wednesday. And I'd also tip off the council's education welfare officer, or maybe the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

mr_benn

I reckon 2500 - that's still a pretty limited run in terms of a Lego minifig but should last the weekend at least which should have been the plan!

flord

I don't know of an exact number. 1 with purchase of over $75 during the store's opening week.

woony2

666 as this is clearly the devils work

bandit778

5000 limited edition printed figuress with chrome umbrella that are won in some way and millions of a generic figures that everybody can buy so exclusivity is catered for and everyone else has the chance to own the store figure.

LuLego

Give all to me.

joel4motion

1000's, as many are needed to hand every buyer one for the opening few days. I wouldn't have thought Lego would need to rely on a chase figure for the opening of a flagship store.

norm103

Lottery system 

starwars4ever

I would say around 2500. Not too much, not too little.

BoomDiggity

I am fine with 3,000.

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA

Numbered 1K with exclusive accessory and packaging then available for general purchase as a souvenir.

MasterBeefy

300, I remember hearing that the Spartans needed only 300 exclusive polybags to satisfy the Persians who some called the largest standing army of polybag collectors. 

JudgeChuck

I agree broadly with what others have said... Perhaps 1000 figures in a limited package and then an identical unlimited version for everyone.

mmozzano

Enough for everyone on the first day! 

tof

Enough for the first three days, so maybe 3000?. The amount should be easy to determine since the company should have an idea of how many people come in general during an opening.

jmeninno

I would do a thousand.  Nice number, not too high in my estimation, but enough that perhaps most people would get one on Day One.

Coolguy5000

Enough for everybody and then Some! 

SithLord196

I think 2500 or 5000 would be a good number.

historyman

Enough for everyone but after opening day they would cost. 

mampepin

I would produce enough for everyone, but make them available randomly with any purchase, no matter how big or small. I would make sure that nobody in the world knew how many existed, just to watch as people go insane trying to figure out their value.

Lego_Star

Approach the problem of the bowler hat from another perspective.

Run the torso making and printing machines for a whole day for the uniquely printed part - the torso. Fans of LEGO probably already own the bowler hat, for everybody else that doesn't tell them what I was told yesterday. Honestly.

(Lester's trousers are in all the bam bars just now for goodness sake.)

GothamConstructionCo

5000. Still rare compared to other promo items and I would call it limited availability and any left from the store opening would be given away in any subsequent store promos in the future.

SeijiAmasawa

First 500 people in line gets the exclusive, no purchase required. 

Bricklover18

1200, a fair number. 

steinbrique

275 ! make a big marketing of it and then sell all of them on ebay for 1000€ a pcs.

sukh

2000 for the first purchase over say £100.

paul_merton

For a single bricks and mortar store in the heart of a city, 5000 was the number that immediately leapt into my mind half way through reading the brief! It would keep it rarer than many other exclusives, yet probably be enough to appease the natives.

Covi

Well...I would do two things.
I would make 2500 copies of the same figure. That seems a reasonable amount for being exclusive and still have plenty.
I would divide those 2500 in two separate stocks: 1000 for complete new customers, but also 1500 for loyal customers who already bought at other flagship stores or online. I could easily check that with their customer card.
doing so I've a system for new customers but also something for rewarding the loyal ones. 
By making it also linked to a customer card, it would be also technically possible to just give one minifigure per card....increasing the chance more different people get one.

HugeYellowBrick

1000 in limited edition packaging for the first people into the shop, to satisfy the collectors, and the people who made the effort to get there early; also (unannounced) add the parts to the Build Your Own Minifigures for the observant, and then a gradual release to BYOM world-wide.

adiemc

I'll say 50 a day dropped randomly into your bag for the first month. 

RogerKirk

1000 seems about right, if there are no logistical problems in getting that many.

stlux

500/day sounds about right.

Renegade007cjh

Hmmm... got something to get off your chest @iso3200 ?  :)  And a well-deserved rant, it is, too!!

Sensible numbers would be in the region of 5,000 - 10,000 total production run (similar to the White Boba Fett / Mr Gold), spread over a decent period (e.g. first five years of Store's life), with substantially more available at key points (i.e. AFOL Opening, Grand Opening and yearly Anniversaries), with the others drip-fed across the year.

If you wanted to make it "extra special" a certain amount could be awarded totally blind, such as the till registering every one hundred customers and popping out a little code / token or something like that - a bit like the "millionth customer" promotions you hear about (but, obviously, not as many as that).

The options are endless but, in short, anything *but* the way this hypothetical situation actually played out!!

donutboy

275, why argue with facts.

TheOriginalSimonB

One million dollars. Sorry, figures. 

AllBrick

Five hundred. 

PoMoPink

None.

cmrt1014

2,000 - more if it's in a larger city, and/or if it's a larger store (thinking about how many customers can get through during opening ceremonies!)

thebeermonkey

There should only be 5 made which will be hidden in random Duplo boxes. The five lucky winners have to go to Billund to collect their prize. A series of self inflicted hubristic disasters befall 4 of the lucky winners. The last lucky winner standing inherits the company. 

ecmo47

One per person that shows up that day. No multiple purchases allowed. All left overs destroyed. Oh, and have a minimum purchase of 50.00 or so. No free-bees for a keychain!