The Brick Connection – A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

Happy March, LEGO fans!

This is my least favorite month of the year because it feels like we’re so close to spring and warmer weather, but it’s never close enough. Instead it’s just a long month of nothing.

There’s no football. Baseball is only in spring training, which is SUPER boring unless you’re lucky enough to make a trip to Florida to see the games in person. Oh and then there’s that damn basketball tournament. No thank you! (Although you should be on the lookout for the BrickWarriors annual Bracket Challenge which is a lot more fun and can win you custom LEGO accessories.)

The only good thing about March is St. Patrick’s Day because it means Shamrock Shakes at McDonald’s and an excuse to drink a lot for at least one night. (For anyone under the age of 21 that may be reading this, I am of course talking about drinking a lot of soda. It’s unhealthy to drink a lot of soda normally, but once a year you gotta go a little crazy and drink so much soda that you get really….hyper.)

This is also the time of year when companies are ready to report their earnings from the previous year. Why do I bring up this extremely uninteresting fact?

Because LEGO!

Yes, the LEGO Group has announced their sales figures for 2015 and you can probably guess that the numbers are damn good. Like really, really good. Even better than 2014. And if you remember, 2014 was the year The LEGO Movie came out, which was a huge sales generator for the company.

But 2015 was even better. Perhaps still riding the high of the movie, combined with the anticipation of a new Star Wars movie, 2015 saw a 25% jump in revenue and 31% rise in net profits.

Even if you don’t understand words like revenue and net profit, it’s pretty obvious that good things are happening. The world’s biggest toy company seems unstoppable. Their growth from 2014 to 2015 was bigger than it was from 2013 to 2014. Yes, bigger than the growth from The LEGO Movie. How amazing is that? I mean it would have been kind of understandable to have the growth be steady or slightly down, but NOPE.

While looking at the many articles and stories regarding LEGO’s 2015 numbers I was able to find out some interesting facts about where LEGO is making their money.

Here’s a screenshot of where my top-notch research team (me, myself, and I) got all the information.

Okay, so I Googled LEGO and then I hit the “News” button. It’s so easy, a monkey could do it. But I bet the monkey’s LEGO blog wouldn’t be as hilariously witty as mine.

As you can see from some of the headlines, it was Star Wars and princesses that reigned supreme for LEGO in 2015.

LEGO’s top 5 best sellers were the following:

1. Disney Princess: Elsa’s Sparkling Ice Castle

2. Star Wars: Millennium Falcon

3. City: Police Station

4. Mindstorms EV3

5. Friends Heartlake Grand Hotel

The top two spots were taken by licensed themes of major blockbuster movies. The other three spots are all LEGO-created themes. The LEGO-created Ninjango and Elves themes were also very strong product lines. 

Speaking of which, I found out that two-thirds of all of LEGO’s earnings come from their own themes, with the other third coming from the licensed themes. This is proof that LEGO is creatively powerful on its own, while still making time to very lucratively combine forces with other innovated storytellers.

In fact, in 2015 LEGO launched more new products than ever before with 350. That includes the release of LEGO Dimensions video game, which was a very worthwhile endeavor. 

LEGO’s CEO, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp with great sincerity and enthusiasm (and an adorable accent) discussed the growth of the company on CNN, which you can watch below:

I know some people think of CEOs of billion dollar corporations as soulless, greedy buttheads, but this guy seems genuinely invested in growing and expanding the LEGO brand to benefit children’s learning and imagination; not just to boost the bottom line.

Although he is obviously pretty happy about the boost to the bottom line.

Vig Knudstorp said LEGO’s earnings grew by double digits in all of its core markets (U.S. and Europe mostly), which outpaced the earnings growth for the toy industry overall.

Not too shabby for an 84-year-old, family-owned company.

Another item of note: With a Disney Princess and a LEGO Friends set each cracking the top 5 LEGO sellers, is this proof that LEGO’s outreach to girls is working? Not that boys can’t enjoy a Disney princess, but I think it’s easy to assume that a lot of Sparkling Ice Castle fans are female. This means that the female LEGO fandom is growing, and that is awesome!

My final analysis of LEGO’s 2015 earnings is this:

There are a lot of LEGO fans who spend a lot of money on LEGO. A lot of them like Frozen and Star Wars. The end.

One last thing before I go. Have you ever wondered about the science behind the pain of stepping on LEGO bricks?

…No, you’d rather just not think about that pain at all?

Well if you are interested, here is a really cute and interesting video on why those little bricks cause so much pain.

Basically the strength and durability of LEGO bricks that are essential to our everlasting love for the toys are also the reason they can cause so much pain. It’s actually quite fascinating how such tiny objects can wreak such havoc. I mean obviously one tiny bullet can be fatal (when launched with explosive pressure through a barrel), but the bricks don’t even break your skin usually. They’re just lying on the ground all innocently until they suddenly become evil instruments of torture. They won’t kill you, but they will make you want to kill whoever left them out. (Never act on that desire, please.)

That’s all for this week. By the way, I have a novel idea. How about my loyal readers or more likely, the people who just clicked on this post because of the cool picture, leave a comment? I won’t bite. And even if I did bite, how would that be a problem if you only know me through the internet?

I would genuinely love to hear from you!

Until next time…it’s time to get my Shamrock Shake on!

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*