Domestic Blocks Seek Change: Intended To Build China Lego

Recently, the news of "LEGO's upcoming price hike" has been on the hot list. The LEGO Group said the price increase is due to "energy, logistics and raw material prices continue to rise, resulting in rising costs", and revealed that about 25% of the products will increase prices.

At the same time, some consumers turned their attention to the domestic blocks, the social media platform on the topic of domestic blocks constantly. China Business News reporter learned that this year's "6-18" promotion, the domestic block brand sales growth is obvious.

In fact, the domestic building block brand in recent years through IP cooperation, the development of technology, technology, improve the supply chain, gradually get rid of the "low quality and low price" stereotype, and to the creative trend of play, collection blocks and other directions of transformation. Audience age also from the original younger children to the Z generation or even the whole age group to expand.

The current domestic blocks are in the environment of consumer upgrading, national trend and market expansion, in this context, the interviewees have said that the future prospects of domestic brands to take the cost-effective and Chinese difference route.

The rise of domestic blocks

"The quality of domestic blocks in recent years is getting better and better, parts feel, product design and peripheral extension industries have progressed, even though there are now some gaps with international brands, but the future is likely to surpass." Martin, a veteran block enthusiast and founder of the MOC Block Museum, told reporters.

Domestic blocks are being more and more consumer attention. This reporter noticed that the microblogging platform on the topic of "the strength of domestic blocks" reached more than 20 million reads, triggering 66,000 comments; Little Red Book on the "domestic blocks" notes more than 30,000.

From the data of the e-commerce platform, domestic blocks in the block category is ushering in an explosion, the data performance of domestic blocks also showed a good trend. According to the "Tmall Trendy Toy Industry White Paper" released by Tmall, the current market size of the block category has reached 10 billion, and this year's "6-18" pre-sale so far, the cumulative amount of the category has increased by more than 100% year-on-year. According to whale data, the first half of this year, some of the domestic blocks sales growth has exceeded Lego, including Moe Kitty, KeepPley sales growth of 230%, 150%, respectively, Lego 26%.

Behind the rise of domestic blocks can not be separated from the capital investment, in the past two years, spell Qi, Bruco, coincidental blocks, Senbao blocks and other successive financing, including investors such as Sequoia China, Alibaba.

Ai media consulting chief analyst Zhang Yi pointed out that the overall domestic income level and the improvement of China's manufacturing level capacity, for the development of domestic blocks provides the possibility. In addition, after LEGO entered China, the product can be sold, but also for the block category market education, for the development of domestic brands has laid a certain foundation and provide a reference to the success of experience.

The person in charge of TOP TOY believes that domestic block lovers for domestic blocks are growing demand, one of the important points is the high cost performance of domestic blocks. He said, for example, "the price of Lego is 3 to 4 times that of domestic, some out-of-print Lego products are even more than 10 times the price of domestic, domestic blocks by combining with traditional culture, and constantly push new products to meet the consumer demand of the country."

Can't get around Lego

Martin said, "the domestic brand is difficult to reach LEGO may be the brand influence. In the hearts of many block lovers, LEGO has become synonymous with the block category, occupying the minds of users is not formed overnight, the national brands or difficult to shake LEGO's position in a short time."

Founded nearly a century, LEGO has formed advantages in IP, standardized production, cultural precipitation and other aspects. As the world's largest toy company, LEGO master hold many popular IP, including Marvel, Harry Potter, Disney and other well-known IP, while it also has a number of IP blocks category exclusive rights.

Relying on popular IP support, LEGO had gained huge profits. The New Beijing News reported that the LEGO Harry Potter series had released more than 50 sets in the 10-year period from 2001 to 2011, with an average return on investment of 6.82%.

Top design expert and Tsinghua University brand marketing consultant Sun Wei said in this regard, "Popular IP usually has a wide fan base, so developing IP blocks is good for product sales and avoiding the risk of poor sales."

Shen Meng, chief strategist of Guangke Consulting, believes that the core barrier of LEGO is not only its own strong innovation and operation ability, but also the infinite possibility of providing users with integrated creativity with continuity based on LEGO products. "LEGO products can be played according to the instructions or not, with great flexibility."

It is understood that all new and old LEGO parts are effectively compatible and have long-term value. For LEGO, in this model, it only needs to innovate in addition to the basic parts to launch some parts, it can form a new set for sale, to stimulate the unlimited creativity of players at a lower cost.

As LEGO's "Chinese apprentice", the domestic brand also chose the IP method, the difference is that the domestic blocks in the IP cooperation selection, more in line with Chinese culture and national preferences. Such as Sambo blocks took the three bodies, wandering earth, the Forbidden City and other high-quality IP, there are exclusive resources such as the Shandong ship, aerospace culture and creativity, aviation culture and creativity, Li Zhi blocks have launched a series of products Journey to the West, Piece Qi launched a co-branded model of Wulin Wai Chuan.

The quality of a block product is related to the quality of the parts, the richness of the theme, the experience of the product, etc. Martin believes that "in terms of Chinese themes, Lego still has a short board, which is where the opportunity for domestic brands lies."

In addition, through IP cooperation, domestic blocks will also be the product's consumer circle from the lower age to the whole age group expansion. Among them, Sambo blocks proposed products for all ages, the combination of high-quality trendy play and blocks; Punch aims to create "collection blocks" for the adult market.

Shen Meng said, through IP cooperation can maximize the use of marketing fever, is conducive to short-term revenue, but the cost of IP cooperation is not low, the most important thing is to seriously build product-oriented innovation capacity of domestic blocks.

In addition to the use of IP, the domestic building block industry is trying to take the road of branding and quality development. "China blocks to see Chenghai", Chenghai District, Shantou City, is an important toy product production base in the country and the world, it can be said that the transformation and upgrading of Chenghai factory also represents the transformation and upgrading of domestic blocks. In the past, Chenghai's toy enterprises tend to be mainly OEM, in recent years, as Chenghai guide enterprises in the direction of data, intelligence and other upgrades, to transform the growth of such as Senbao blocks, KeepPley, spell Qi and more than 100 block brands.

Building block industry to achieve from "Made in China" to "Made in China" transformation and upgrading, technology empowerment is the key. For example, KeepPley through access to Ali cloud technology, the overall workshop capacity increased by 30%, the yield rate increased by 60%; Sambo blocks have more than 6,000 sets of molds, the requirements of the block brick against the international first-line manufacturers. It can be seen that the domestic blocks through technology upgrades to improve product quality.

Chenghai District, a block tide play retail store owner told reporters, "the first echelon of domestic blocks quality, quality control has been quite close to Lego, raw materials are ABS, injection molding machine level is not bad, from the whole industry, the main lack of talent, especially the excellent block product designers."

The future still needs to actively seek change

At present, the building block market is still in continuous expansion, more and more companies choose to add to the code in this. Not long ago, Top Toy, a tide play brand under the name of Daiso, declared that this year the block category as a Top 1 strategic category. According to the information given by TOP TOY, the number of stores has reached 89 by the end of December 2021. top toy will open a Chinese blocks section in each store for specialized marketing and user education of the brand.

In addition, animation and entertainment culture industry group company AoFei Entertainment recently said in an investor interactive platform that its Vespa blocks are expected to launch a number of new products in six product lines this year, including the remote control blocks series, the China space blocks series and the Balala Little Magic Fairy blocks castle series.

With the intensification of competition, according to the Chinese and foreign toy network prediction, the future in the building block industry, small brands will be more and more pressure to survive, the big brands will be more unique in product design, increase the differences to consolidate their market share.

For the future development of domestic blocks, senior Internet observer Ding Daoshi believes that "first good products to have a good brand, domestic blocks or to start from the basics, adhere to the quality of good, the product system to do a full, further expand the cooperation channels, and then consider the next step. Domestic blocks can focus on cultural confidence, such as the launch of the mortise and tenon structure of the blocks, this kind of splicing is different from Lego, belonging to the Chinese traditional characteristics, is also one of the opportunities."

He believes that the domestic brand is not bad at the manufacturing level, the key is not to form a complete product system and a strong enough brand influence. Lego has a complete product system, in addition to the creativity and extensibility of the blocks, it has become a fan culture, with hundreds of offline online communication community, domestic blocks want to high-end forward, but also need the brand and culture of continuous precipitation.

According to TOP TOY brand founder and CEO Sun Yuanwen observation, young people buy blocks driven by social needs, to meet the circle, social culture value identity, the pursuit of originality and scarcity of supply of demand satisfaction. Domestic blocks are an important element to build brand influence, he said, "Now consumers do not need cheap blocks, but blocks with a sense of brand value . In the future, TOP TOY will build product lines around 'Chinese building blocks' such as Chinese spaceflight, Chinese style, fun and trendy play, and urban street scenes."

Sun Wei also said, "Domestic blocks should be based on Chinese culture, tap the IP elements after the big cultural background, adhere to the originality, and strive to design world-class works with Chinese characteristics. In addition, domestic blocks should also seize the bonus opportunity of channel sinking to third-tier cities."