Are "Big Bang Themes" a Bad Strategy?

[Lego David]

Ever since the great success of Ninjago in 2011, LEGO seems to have shifted their business model from having just casual original themes to having mostly just Big Bang Original Themes. In case you aren't familiar with what a "Big Bang Theme" is, it's an original LEGO theme that is planned to last for at least three years, and gets a lot of marketing push in the first year in order to create a "Big Bang" in terms of sales. On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with such themes, until you realize that all the Big Bang themes we've gotten so far have been more or less just Ninjago clones. Chima, Nexo Knights, and recently Monkie Kid have all tried to emulate Ninjago's success while simultaneously competing against it, and for the most part, they have all failed more or less. Chima tanked in it's third year, Nexo Knights was cut short very early on, and while we don't know yet about how well Monkie Kid sold, I have a feeling it would also suffer a similar fate as the other two (especially when you consider how overpriced the sets are). 

So, what do you think? Are Big Bang Themes a bad strategy for LEGO? Should LEGO keep pursuing them, or should they return to more casual original themes, like in the late 2000's and early 2010's? 

[KotZ]

I think LEGO just wasn't ready for the massive success that was/is Ninjago. they had experimented before with "mini" big bang lines, like I would say Exo-Force was probably their first real foray into that. Sure we had Bionicle and that multi-media juggernaut. KK2 also was a bit similar, as it had a story, but less media. Exo-Force ran three years, just like planned Big Bangs, had various media like books and I think some short videos, games, etc. It was dealing with a new, unfamiliar world, similar to NK, Chima, Ninjago, etc.

I think Exo-Force proved to LEGO that these quick Big Bang themes would work, so they wen ahead with ninjago. And after not having Ninjas since the 1990s, they sold like hot cakes, especially with the story and amount of media they pushed out.

The other themes are victim to Ninjago's continued success. The problem with Ninjago now is that it serves as the catch-all theme for everything LEGO used to do. Knights? They're basically in Ninjago. Space? It's in there. Mechs? Yup. City-esque? Yeah to an extent. Ninjago is like LEGO City. We used to have lots of the minor themes but their modern iterations reside under the CITY label because it's easier to sell.

We still have and had lots of casual themes. Elves (I'd consider it casual rather than Big Bang), Hidden Side, Galaxy Squad and Ultra Agents.

Once Ninjago ends, we'll get a new Big Bang theme that will cycle through on the three year cycle, or maybe it goes 9 years like Ninjago is. What I would prefer is a few Big Bang themes that cover various areas, but not as much as we saw with the casual themes.

[Pulp Detective]

One thing is certain that after the success of Ninjago Lego became creatively bankrupt.On one hand Ninjago keeps cannibalizing potential new themes and on the other every new BB theme is a Ninjago clone.Honestly ever since 2013 untill now the only original themes that we got were Ultra Agents and Hidden Side. 

So personally I would rather have them ditch the BB formula and go back to more frequent original themes. 

Edited July 21, 2020 by LOTR34

[TeriXeri]

I think overall, in-house LEGO sets are suffering from too many repeated named characters, even City started that trend at the end of 2019 with it's TV show and characters.

Only Ninjago has managed to stay around for so long, but when multiple themes have "teams" of the same characters repeating over and over, it starts to get boring.

I rather have 10 generic City police dudes then 10 Duke Detains, and I loved the City Space-Research people pack.

When there are like 6 themes going at the same time, running their own team of characters it gets boring.

Named characters also don't really have an army building/collecting element some AFOLs like.

Unlike Castle , Space, or Pirates which had a lot of generic figures.

Monkie Kid has a lot of generic bull-villains, but then the good-guy side of thing is again a team of the same repeatedly, and there is no cheap Starter/ArmyBuilder/Battlepack type set in the lineup.

Season 13 Ninjago does have a decent balance on spreading the hero-ninjas across the sets, it's possible to get a full team of ninjas in 2 sets, and Wu is seperate in a smaller set.

Edited July 21, 2020 by TeriXeri

[deraven]

7 hours ago, KotZ said:

The other themes are victim to Ninjago's continued success. The problem with Ninjago now is that it serves as the catch-all theme for everything LEGO used to do.

 

2 hours ago, LOTR34 said:

Ninjago keeps cannibalizing potential new themes

I think these comments sum it up.  I think Big Bang themes can work very well and be a lot of fun, producing great sets... but it all ends up being Ninjago or watered-down so it doesn't compete or overlap with Ninjago too much.  Steampunk/Dieselpunk theme? Wrap it in Ninjago.  Want some awesome Mechs?  Make them Ninjago (though we've had mechs in a lot of themes now).  Cyberpunk?  Stick Ninjago inside video games.

I think that's still resulted in some awesome sets.  I liked Sky Pirates and bought several of those sets because I liked the dieselpunk feel, and the fact that it was a Ninjago season didn't really matter to me.  Now, if Ninjago wasn't rolling along at the time and we got a full BB run of a similar theme, would it have been better?  Probably.  But would something like a whole dieselpunk BB line have even happened?  I'm not so sure.

So the question in my mind is this: would we prefer to have longer-running but very flexible themes where they can do shorter runs of different ideas like that which maybe aren't so "safe", or a few BB themes and hope they're interesting and well-executed?  Personally, even though I'm a bit weary of Ninjago I think the current mix of standard themes & licensed properties, plus a long-running "flexible" theme, plus some shorter-run BB experiments, plus some good Ideas and D2C items mixed in works well.  What I'd like to see less of is random licensing (Overwatch, Minions, Trolls, etc.) that probably takes talent and focus away from making BB themes really great and potentially more successful for Lego when not lost in the shuffle of 50 other product lines.

But if Lego can do it all and not stumble into the problems they created for themselves in the past with over-diversification of product lines, more power to them.  And I think if BB themes were bad strategy (meaning sales numbers weren't where they needed them to be), they've have already figured that out and stopped trying them.  Everything beyond that is just AFOL preferences as to what we'd like to see them put their focus.  

[Robert8]

They clearly didn't care about Monkey Kid overlaping with Ninjago

Let's see how that goes

 

 

About the big bang themes, well they have being doing it for a decade now, so it works for them

Nexo Knights have been their biggest failure, since it got abruptly cancelled. The theme was intented to last longer for sure. 

We don't know if Hidden Side was planned to end as it did, but the ending also feels abrupt

 

[koalayummies]

59 minutes ago, Robert8 said:

We don't know if Hidden Side was planned to end as it did, but the ending also feels abrupt

Woah! Its so abrupt I didn't even know it had ended! Dang, I enjoyed the aesthetic of that theme.

[Lego David]

8 hours ago, LOTR34 said:

One thing is certain that after the success of Ninjago Lego became creatively bankrupt.On one hand Ninjago keeps cannibalizing potential new themes and on the other every new BB theme is a Ninjago clone.Honestly ever since 2013 untill now the only original themes that we got were Ultra Agents and Hidden Side. 

So personally I would rather have them ditch the BB formula and go back to more frequent original themes. 

I agree with everything said here. This is the exact problem I also have with the BB themes. 

[Peppermint_M]

The name "Big Bang" is a TLG in-house term. Any theme that has a marketing push with multimedia extras and a story added in with get that name. So, Elves and Hidden Side, Monster Fighters, Exo-Force, Ultra Agents... It is also applied to themes that are not "evergreen", which I must mention: Ninjago is now an Evergreen theme. 

A lot of the subthemes of Ninjago would never had been marketable without the veneer of the familiar characters; Steampunk/Dieselpunk is hard to market to kids unless they are already familiar with it. Chuck the ninja on it and it becomes appealing. 

It is a lot cheaper too, to use one banner to cover a lot of different "themes". Want to have a modern and grounded Arctic Survey style theme? City Arctic covers you without having to faff about with launching a new internal brand. 

If anything, it is the IP Licenses that "hurt" other themes. Star Wars is easier to market to kids than coming up with a new Space or Sci-Fi theme. Harry Potter can shift the castle-like sets. The audience likes that familiar brand already, so it takes less effort (and money!) to create and sell a product based on it. 

So no, "Big Bang" themes are not a bad strategy, but as far as I can tell, the purest form of them is just not happening anymore. 

[ShaydDeGrai]

I can appreciate that established IPs (be they in-house or licensed) are easier to market, especially to new customers.  Going the "Big Bang" route gets the brand out there and has kids that are just growing into "prime Lego age" thinking: "I love the cartoon! Mommy, Daddy, can I have the play set?" and the fact that "the play set" is Lego is almost an after thought, but it gets new kids discovering Lego and (hopefully) the joy of building when otherwise they might of skipped over the Lego aisle in Target entirely whilst playing a video game.  So as a, for lack of a better term, "gateway drug" strategy it's a pretty solid concept. 

Still, I kinda agree with @TeriXeri, we're knee deep in named characters with defined backstories.  Unless you are new to Lego, the whole thing seems pretty tired and worn at this point.   I miss the days of the old evergreen themes with lots of generic characters and plenty of opportunity for open-ended story telling.  Even when they did introduce a named character here or there, the predefined "history" was easy to ignore (scrap Cap'n Redbeard and redistribute his parts across four or five other minifigs and you have a motley pirate crew to call your own).  I liked that a lot more than today's mindset of "everybody knows _this_ is who he's _supposed_ to be" and "that's not how the story goes..."  It constrains creativity and, for me at least, that gets old fast.  

I'll admit miss the old evergreens.  It's a shame that they are harder to market these days, and it's annoying the way things like Ninjago have spilled over/swallowed up space and jets and mechs and sailing ships, etc., under their umbrella because I used to be able to skip the Ninjago section entirely, confident that I wasn't interested in anything offered under that theme.  Now I have to wade through all the things I don't care about to find the occasional gem I really want, despite it being marketed under Ninjago.  

I'm glad we still have City and things like the City-Space to offer a more generic open-ended world for inventive story telling.  The Big Bang Blitz might be great for marketing, but as the father of a young child I don't think its very good for imaginative play and cognitive development.  And as an AFOL, I think it's a bit tedious at this point.

 

[Mylenium]

22 hours ago, Lego David said:

So, what do you think? Are Big Bang Themes a bad strategy for LEGO? Should LEGO keep pursuing them, or should they return to more casual original themes, like in the late 2000's and early 2010's? 

Not necessarily an issue of one "Big Bang Theme" taking the cake. Sometimes you simply have to try twenty times before a new product takes. That's just the reality of any product development. I've seen companies in the machine building industry sink billions of Euro in projects that they misjudged. Similarly, I can barely keep count of the software projects I've seen come and go over the years and that never made it out of Beta. Happens to the best of them. That being said, it's only natural that LEGO are trying to emulate Ninjago's success and are looking for the next big thing. Of course there's that part where they simply stumble upon their own feet with dumb decisions and lazy execution, but sometimes the market simply isn't ready. I also think mutual cannibalization is overrated. Some people just don't care for Ninjago at all, excellent as some sets may be. The same could be said about other series. If there's any concern at all with regards to people's ability to afford stuff, it's simply that LEGO are pushing out too much and the prices have become kind of crazy, but that's a different discussion...

Mylenium

13 hours ago, Robert8 said:

We don't know if Hidden Side was planned to end as it did, but the ending also feels abrupt

It wasn't. There have long been rumors that the series was planned at least three years in advance before even being announced and that the content created for it could last at least five years. Apparently LEGO were hoping for a lot more, but totally underestimated how much people were teed off by that AR nonsense and the lack of genuine world building.

Mylenium

[ShaydDeGrai]

1 hour ago, Mylenium said:

Apparently LEGO were hoping for a lot more, but totally underestimated how much people were teed off by that AR nonsense and the lack of genuine world building.

Yeah, I was one of those people.  Some of builds were actually quite interesting, but the whole AR gimmick (IMHO) only served to drive the cost up and the quality down. I'm not surprised that it didn't appeal to me, but I am surprised to learn that there were enough likeminded people to me that they killed the theme early and abruptly after all that hype.  I can't exactly say I'll miss it, 

I suppose that's really another way of measuring the impact of a "Big Bang" theme.  Is it really only about how popular it is today, or can we learn something from how quickly it fades away and whether or not people actually care when it's gone?  Perhaps I'm just old and cranky, but I don't see a lot of the current offerings inspiring cult followings among collectors a decade from now the way, say, Bionicle gets its own  MOC display section in a lot of conventions these days and mint in box/canister kits are grossly overpriced compared to original MSRP.  Obviously the secondary market is of limited interest to TLG and its immediate marketing goals, but as a yardstick for measuring truly big, "Big Bangs" I think it does say something about how the consumer community reacts/relates to them (and the brand) over time.

[Lego David]

11 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

I suppose that's really another way of measuring the impact of a "Big Bang" theme.  Is it really only about how popular it is today, or can we learn something from how quickly it fades away and whether or not people actually care when it's gone?  Perhaps I'm just old and cranky, but I don't see a lot of the current offerings inspiring cult followings among collectors a decade from now the way, say, Bionicle gets its own  MOC display section in a lot of conventions these days and mint in box/canister kits are grossly overpriced compared to original MSRP.  Obviously the secondary market is of limited interest to TLG and its immediate marketing goals, but as a yardstick for measuring truly big, "Big Bangs" I think it does say something about how the consumer community reacts/relates to them (and the brand) over time.

That's another really good point. Most of the Big Bang themes we have gotten so far have failed to have any lasting impact, compared to something like say, Rock Raiders which despite being very short lived, is still very fondly remembered in the community 20 years after it's release. So if your Big Bang themes are as "Big" as you advertise them, why do they keep failing at making an impact? The answer is rather simple: They are all more or less Ninjago clones. So if they want their BB themes to succeed and become popular, they should make something completely unique and original instead of continuing to try to emulate Ninago's success. 

[Mylenium]

13 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

Is it really only about how popular it is today, or can we learn something from how quickly it fades away and whether or not people actually care when it's gone?

From the business side, all that matters are the revenue and grosses. I don't know any company that gets too wound up over past products and their popularity. It's simple metrics - people caring and being fans of legacy products may make for good PR, but factually it's a tiny, tiny percentage of your whole customer base. Even all LEGO-related communities combined are just a fraction of all people that actually buy the products. That's one thing you have to keep in mind. We still live inside a specific bubble no matter how open-minded and broadly thinking we try to be. That's why I don't think popularity of specific themes is a good measure. Sure, LEGO are undoubtedly watching us, but even if we all petitioned to bring back Bionicle the chances that it would actually happen were slim. There are other considerations they would have take into account long before that...

Mylenium

[MAB]

6 hours ago, Lego David said:

Most of the Big Bang themes we have gotten so far have failed to have any lasting impact, compared to something like say, Rock Raiders which despite being very short lived, is still very fondly remembered in the community 20 years after it's release. So if your Big Bang themes are as "Big" as you advertise them, why do they keep failing at making an impact? The answer is rather simple: They are all more or less Ninjago clones. So if they want their BB themes to succeed and become popular, they should make something completely unique and original instead of continuing to try to emulate Ninago's success. 

I don't see how Elves, Monster Fighters, Ultra Agents, etc can be viewed as Ninjago clones. Plus I don't think they need to make a lasting impact, they need to make a current impact - that is, resonate with kids now and not AFOLs over a long period. That said, I don't think there has been long enough to have made a lasting impact for anything released since 2010. For example, Rock Raiders. It is only really remembered fondly by those that had it as a kid. Give Chima or Nexo Knights 20 years and they may well be remembered fondly by kids that grew up with them. I remember people saying how bad Atlantis was, same with PQ and GS. Yet these days, some people look back fondly on getting a one (or two) year and done theme. Is Rock Raiders any more popular now than Atlantis will be in another 10 years, or Monster Fighters will be in another 12 or so? I guess we'll find out.

As to making something completely unique, that is likely to fail badly. Completely unique, what does it even mean? Ninjago has minifigures, so unique would mean no minifigures, otherwise it is copying an aspect of what is successful. Ninjago has a storyline, so unique would mean no storyline. Ninjago has characters that kids like to identify with, so unique would be having characters (but not minifigures) that kids cannot identify with. Making something completely unique is almost impossible. Better to learn what has been successful and try to emulate some aspects of it.

[Lego David]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

I don't see how Elves, Monster Fighters, Ultra Agents, etc can be viewed as Ninjago clones

I wasn't talking about those, I was talking about Chima, Nexo Knights and Monkie Kid, which could definitely be viewed as Ninjago clones.

 

4 hours ago, MAB said:

As to making something completely unique, that is likely to fail badly. Completely unique, what does it even mean? Ninjago has minifigures, so unique would mean no minifigures, otherwise it is copying an aspect of what is successful. Ninjago has a storyline, so unique would mean no storyline. Ninjago has characters that kids like to identify with, so unique would be having characters (but not minifigures) that kids cannot identify with. Making something completely unique is almost impossible. Better to learn what has been successful and try to emulate some aspects of it.

That's not what I meant. I meant unique I a way that doesn't feel like it's too similar to another theme. 

[Mylenium]

28 minutes ago, Lego David said:

That's not what I meant. I meant unique I a way that doesn't feel like it's too similar to another theme. 

To use a quote from one of my favorite TV series, Deep Space Nine: "The repetitive epic is the most elegant form of Cardassian literature,..." and apparently this on some level applies and goes back to Homer's analysis of the hero's cycle in human literature, too - despite best intentions, history is always repeating. Point in case: Everything has been done in some way at some point in time somehow already, so it's inevitable the pattern will repeat. Specifically to LEGO what could you even come up with that wouldn't feel like it is a rehash of something else? I just don't see it. The constraints of a commercial product alone are limiting factors as is the technical system it is based on. So "truly unique" is an unobtainable goal by that measure. At best we can hope for something "genuinely fresh" in that the tropes may not be too obviously recognizable, at first at least, but I don't see anything epic happening on the horizon. Ninjago was LEGO's one golden luck punch and it's simply infinitely difficult to replicate this as much as they may want to.

Mylenium

[deraven]

I agree with Mylenium here - if Lego measured success by units of nostalgia or fan-praise, then more of these arguments would matter, but they view success as generating revenue and turning a profit.  As I said above earlier, if BB themes were a "bad strategy" they'd have stopped producing them.  The issue we're now debating is what the "goal" should be.  Again, for Lego that's turning a profit and clearly this kind of product achieves its goal.  For AFOLs looking instead for "creativity" or nostalgic potential, maybe they're not the best strategy... but that's now what Lego is going for themselves.

Now, of course, pleasing their customer base is important to Lego in both the short and long-term but, again, that customer base is also diverse.  They're putting out products aimed at adults, however with the bulk of their business still being sets that kids want today, as long as whatever they produce sells and is fun right now for those kids, their mission is accomplished.  Nostalgia absolutely plays a roll in what parents are willing to buy for their kids, but Lego has their overall brand going for them to aid in that.  For example, a Cabbage Patch Kid is just that, and not really anything else.  If a child is into dolls and that kind of play, a parent might buy them a Cabbage Patch Kid because they had one they loved when they were little, and that's that.  With Lego, however, it's just about anything and everything: If their kid is into Star Wars, or Harry Potter, or Disney, or Marvel, or Ninjas... all those things can be had in Lego and a fond memory with Lego regardless of the theme may be enough to get the parent to select a Lego version of that IP (and possibly other Lego products).  I don't think any parents are holding out to buy Lego for their kids until they revive a specific older theme.  Looking forward, Lego might lose a little bit of that nostalgia as today's kids grow up if "Star Wars toys" are what they remember vs "Lego Star Wars" or just Lego in general, but that's where the Lego IP such as Ninjago and even the shorter BB themes will still help.  After all, as was mentioned several times here already, look at how many of us still think about Rock Raiders or Power Miners or Atlantis, etc., and we're still buying plenty of other non-related Lego products today.  

[astral brick]

On 7/23/2020 at 12:12 AM, ShaydDeGrai said:

Still, I kinda agree with @TeriXeri, we're knee deep in named characters with defined backstories.  Unless you are new to Lego, the whole thing seems pretty tired and worn at this point.   I miss the days of the old evergreen themes with lots of generic characters and plenty of opportunity for open-ended story telling.

I miss them too, but apparently there is no coming back from transmediality. Nowadays tv series, movies and videogames are not marketing's elements whose purpose is to promote a product (Lego) but they are themselves a product, perhaps the product which is making the higher profits. The same happened with comic books. 

[TeriXeri]

I didn't mind Nexo Knights as much, and not just because it was the theme that got me back into LEGO.

It also had quite a decent variation in generic soldiers on each side, from minifigs+squirebots, vs minifigs/globlins/scurriers/bricksters/infected squirebots, depending on the 2016, 2017, or 2018 sub-themes.

Monkie Kid sets have the Monkie Kid in every single set, and others do repeat quite often as well, same thing with Hidden Side having a ton of Jack, Parker and Spencers.

And yes, Nexo did repeat it's characters but it still had generic bots+soldiers as I mentioned.

The villain side of things is more generic , even in themes like City/Monkie Kid/ there are quite a few different criminal figures, but Duke Detain, like Monkie Kid, or Jack , appear just too much imo, and I don't find them army builder characters either.

Even Ninjago Season 13 isn't that repetitive in comparison imo, more on the level of Nexo Knights in main character distribution, and the characters are "Heroes" which makes sense in the boardgame theme.

Edited July 23, 2020 by TeriXeri

[Lego David]

8 hours ago, deraven said:

I agree with Mylenium here - if Lego measured success by units of nostalgia or fan-praise, then more of these arguments would matter, but they view success as generating revenue and turning a profit.

The problem is... Those BB Themes have failed in both generating a fanbase and generating profit. Otherwise, Nexo Knights wouldn't have ended so early. If their lines aren't as successful (in terms of profits) as they hoped, they'll just cut them short. 

And that's the point I've been trying to make all along... The competition with Ninjago always limits the success of the other BB themes. So that's what makes them a not very good strategy in my opinion. 

[MAB]

16 hours ago, Lego David said:

I wasn't talking about those, I was talking about Chima, Nexo Knights and Monkie Kid, which could definitely be viewed as Ninjago clones.

Elves, Monster Fighters, Ultra Agents are still big bang themes though. You cannot exclude some big bang themes to leave only similar ones and then say that big bang themes are too similar and they are not trying anything unique. The fact that these themes are different enough from Ninjago for you to exclude them shows that LEGO are doing something different to Ninjago with some of their big bang themes.

Still, to some extent most action themes (especially the ones primarily aimed at boys) are similar. Monster Fighters had one faction against another faction, so did Galaxy Squad, so did Alien Conquest, so did Atlantis, so did Pharaoh's Quest. And so did Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Chima, Ultra Agents, Hidden Side, ...  And in a way so does City with police and crooks. And traditional Castle (when it exists). 

[Lego David]

6 minutes ago, MAB said:

Elves, Monster Fighters, Ultra Agents are still big bang themes though.

Elves maybe could be counted (since it had a TV Show and it lasted for four years) but Monster Fighters and Ultra Agents definitely not. They were made as just one-off themes, and got no TV Show and very little marketing push. 

Edited July 24, 2020 by Lego David

[MAB]

5 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Elves maybe could be counted (since it had a TV Show and it lasted for four years) but Monster Fighters and Ultra Agents definitely not. They were made as just one-off themes, and got no TV Show and very little marketing push. 

Monster Fighters had a lot of online and multimedia content created for it. Ultra Agents again had a lot of online content and also had an app with comics, games, animations, and so on.

It has already been noted by Peppermint_M, Big Bang is an internal LEGO term. They decide what are classed as Big Bang themes. Often we don't know what themes are or historically have been classed as Big Bang themes. You've given a definition saying they are planned for at least three years - has this ever been confirmed by LEGO? I cannot remember them giving a definition. The problem with a fan-made definition is that all Big Bang themes will have similar elements to them if fans exclude other things by biasing the definitions.

 

[Peppermint_M]

You have to also take into account that the Eurobricks way of classifying and organising themes is something that we came up with and still deal with "organically". 

When I have met with TLG people (from execs to store staff) and I get to talking about my community role, I have to explain what we call Action Themes. I am unashamedly a big fan of these kinds of theme. I mention the current active series and a few of the "classic" themes to give a basic idea.

However to TLG there are other factors at play which decides everything about a playtheme in development. These don't even match between similar themes.