06/20/2007 04:57:06 PM 
The extensions are pretty consistent with the brand and its audience, too. The furniture is play tables and storage chests, the clothing is brightly colored kid gear and the food is fruit snacks (they created LEGO shaped Eggo waffles in 2006).
A brand like LEGO can of course do this because it’s a mega-brand with unusually strong brand equity (98% global awareness).
But that’s only a minimum requirement for this to work. What they’re really playing on is their classic appeal.
"Classics are hot right now and the LEGO Brand plays right into that trend," says Stephanie Lawrence, director partnership and alliance management for the LEGO Group. (http://sev.prnewswire.com/retail)
She couldn't be more spot on. Products like these are popping up everywhere. And people are listening to records and cassette tapes and projecting movies, to name a few examples.
Seems like the more complicated, confusing and fragmented our landscape is getting, the more charming, simple and therefore different the big brands of old look.
Picture a hipster wearing a Starbucks shirt. Near impossible. But it’s not hard to imagine a Pez, Green Giant (or even LEGO) logo in its place.
That same hipster knows every component of her SLR camera, talks about when the new Final Cut Pro is due out and blogs about issues ranging from car design to the politics of Yugoslavia to paranormal phenomena.
Yet she still knows why Wendy’s hamburgers were made square.
Is it nostalgia? We’d probably be too lofty to admit it. But in a time where we can’t possibly shove any more into this world, it seems fitting that a little recycling would take place.
Posted by katie facada
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