by Sarah Herman
Initially, the target age for the DUPLO bricks was a bit ambiguous—a 1970 catalog did not advise customers with an age, and the 1971 U.K. catalog suggested the bricks were for one- to two-year olds, despite sets still including regular bricks at this time, which are targeted at three- and four- to twelve-year olds. But by 1975, DUPLO had been embraced as an independent arm of the LEGO family, and sets no longer included regular LEGO bricks. Six sets launched that year were sold for “toddlers from 1½ years,” and parents were encouraged to help their children make the transition to smaller LEGO bricks around the age of three. As the name DUPLO is not obviously related to toddlers, LEGO varied in its approach and marketing toward the bricks in the 1970s. One 1975 catalog refers to the bricks as “LEGO Nursery Bricks,” despite the name “DUPLO” appearing on the boxes (LEGO Nursery Bricks was the name used in Australia), while another 1976 catalog drops the DUPLO tag altogether and sells them as “LEGO Preschool Blocks.” By 1977, LEGO had reverted back to DUPLO, and had introduced the red rabbit logo still used today.
DUPLO sets progressed dramatically over these few years, with the introduction of eye bricks, doors, and windows, and DUPLO people together with an entire farmyard of animals in 1979. The DUPLO figures were armless and made up of a chunky body, large head, and occasionally a hat or hair-piece. With fewer smaller parts, they were a lot safer for young children to play with.
While LEGO continued with the production of basic building sets for DUPLO, LEGO had learned from developing the System of Play that providing a framework or theme for children to build in was a successful way to encourage play and to increase sales. This can be seen with some DUPLO sets that are clearly junior versions of the regular LEGO sets. By the end of the 1970s there were DUPLO farm sets (033, 045), a DUPLO police station (522), and even a DUPLO town (524). Sets became more animated with painted details and interesting new parts adding to the play value of the DUPLO world and encouraging children to keep playing with these bricks as they get older.
Going Global: How LEGO Began to Conquer the World
World War II changed the face of European industry. Compared to the atrocities and destruction that occurred across much of Europe, Denmark suffered few casualties during the war, and having surrendered to Germany early on in 1940 in exchange for control over their domestic political affairs, things in Denmark continued relatively unchanged—although food was rationed and some materials were harder to come by. If anything, the LEGO Group flourished during wartime and managed to expand. During the 1930s Germany had been the largest exporter of toys to other European countries, especially Denmark, but soon these manufacturers were forced to contribute to the war effort, which opened up the market for Danish manufacturers to sell more products to the Danish people.
This left TLG in a stronger position financially, after the war ended in 1945, and allowed it to continue with the development of its plastic toy lines, and then the LEGO brick. After the war ended, the Marshall Plan saw European economies grow at an unprecedented rate. Denmark received U.S. $385 million in aid, and across Europe there was a 35 percent rise in industrial production. By 1952 most European countries were better off than they had been before the war and so was the LEGO Group. But it was clear to GKC that to keep a foothold on the toy market they would have to risk expansion, and his Scandinavian business trips in the early 1950s would prove extremely useful—as these were the easiest and most obvious countries to work with first.
Perhaps due to Sweden’s close proximity, and the fact that there were no import restrictions there (unlike in Norway, where TLG’s only option was to license out molds to a third-party manufacturer), Godtfred went into business with a couple he had met on his earlier business trips—Axel and Greta Thompson. The Danish husband and wife had set up a business producing dollhouses and the accompanying furniture in Lerum, Sweden, and were the exclusive Swedish distributor of LEGO throughout the 1950s until a foreign sales office, LEGO Sweden, was set up there in 1959. This same year LEGO made waves in France, Britain, Belgium, and Sweden by setting up a variety of distribution deals, and sales offices, or arranging licensing agreements, depending on the country’s current market. Godtfred also licensed out the molds to an Icelandic rehabilitation center for Tuberculosis patients—where as part of their occupational therapy, patients were involved in the production of LEGO toys from 1956 until 1977. Although Godtfred had to rely on licensing for these initial export agreements, he soon realized that setting up individual sales offices in each country would be the only way to retain control and ensure the quality and consistency of the LEGO brand around the world.
The first foreign sales office, however, appeared in 1956 in the largest toy market in Europe—Germany. The Hohenwestedt office was a result of good fortune and the connections Godtfred had made in Scandinavia. By 1954 Axel Thompson was living in Germany running a toy factory there as well as in Sweden. Excited by the prospect of bringing LEGO to the German market, which had steadily rejuvenated its toy business empire since World War II, Thompson sold his Swedish business to his son and in 1956 became the general manager of LEGO Spielwaren GmbH (LEGO Toys) and prepared to go into battle with Godtfred against Deutschland and its critics. After a slow start, a few clever marketing tactics, and the developments of the LEGO brick itself into a better plastic product, sales in Germany steadily rose—by the 1960s Germany was the LEGO Group’s largest foreign market, and remains the largest LEGO customer base in Europe today.
By 1960 LEGO was being exported across Europe and distributors were being established, usually replaced later by sales offices, every year. New partners were based in Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands, and Italy. With so many languages to consider, LEGO stopped producing packaging with language-specific text to avoid having to produce multiple designs. All countries received the same packaging with “LEGO System” as the product’s name.
British LEGO Ltd. was established in the U.K. in 1959. Unlike in other territories, such as Germany, where a sales office had been set up, Godtfred decided to license out LEGO to a British manufacturer who was already familiar with the market. Given that Frank Hornby’s well-loved Meccano already had such a big share of the market there, it would have been presumptuous to assume a Billund-controlled sales office would have been able to do enough to take a slice of the pie. Courtaulds, a successful plastics and textiles producer, were the company to win the license and set about importing parts from Billund to sell to the U.K. market (and associated territories including Australia and Ireland). A factory in Wrexham, Wales, would manufacturer sets from 1963 until the license agreement ended in the early 1990s and the LEGO Group established its own sales office in the U.K., now based in Slough near the headquarters of the U.K.’s major toy retailers.
British toy historian Kenneth Brown explained how U.K. buyers would have seen LEGO bricks as a British toy, given that it was largely made in the U.K. Of the company’s introduction to the U.K. as a toy manufacturer he said, “Where LEGO had the advantage was in presentation and continuous product development, two areas in which Meccano, by contrast, lagged well behind.” This innovation can be seen in a popular 1970s LEGO TV commercial featuring the voice of British comedian Tommy Cooper. It features stop-motion animation of a LEGO mouse who must keep transforming into various other LEGO models so as not to be eaten by a LEGO cat (who is also transforming). The commercial demonstrates the versatility and possibilities of LEGO bricks—if you have enough of them—and closes with the statement “LEGO—It’s a new toy every day.”
By the 1960s it was clear that the LEGO Group was becoming an international affair (from 1962, sales were also taking place in Singapore, Hong Kong, Morocco, and Japan) and without an airport in Billund, around-the-world-travel was proving more time-consuming and costly than necessary. Godtfred purchased a small plane, but was still having to fly it from Esbjerg airport nearly forty miles away from Billund. In 1961 a larger aircraft was purchased and a landing strip and aircraft hangar were built in the field near to
the factory. By 1964 the airport was opened to the public and a new passenger terminal was unveiled in 1966 and again in 2002. Today, Billund Airport is the second busiest in Denmark, behind Copenhagen Airport. The airport would prove extremely useful, firstly for the international relationships the company developed during the ‘60s and ‘70s, and secondly, but perhaps more surprisingly, for the influx of tourists soon to be making their way to Billund to visit LEGOLAND.
One country that faced import restrictions as late as the 1970s was Italy. LEGO Italy was established in 1961, but ten years later, largely due to an economic recession in the country, the Italian government banned the importation of LEGO toys into the country. In response to this, the LEGO Group established a manufacturing subsidiary in Italy where products would be made and sold. The result of this agreement was LEGO Minitalia: exclusive Italian sets released between 1971 and 1977. Minitalia stands apart from regular sets from the period as they were produced from different molds to regular LEGO bricks. Although some more complex parts (such as boat hulls) were imported, Minitalia created most of its bricks and other parts under license, resulting in bricks having hollow rather than solid studs on top, and either slitted tubes or “x”-shaped interlocking parts underneath. Minitalia sets also included its own range of window and door pieces. The first sets in 1971 consisted largely of red, green, and white bricks, and packaging saw a young boy building different-size houses. Later sets included other colored bricks and featured models of trains, trucks, and boats on the packaging. Unlike the sets being released in the rest of Europe, which were more heavily geared toward the models themselves, these sets were more reminiscent of earlier LEGO, with the photo of a wholesome young boy (girls were not featured on the Minitalia set boxes) playing with the bricks always featuring prominently on the box. While some collectors do not consider these official LEGO sets, due to the irregularity of the bricks, they are very much a part of the company’s history. Minitalia shows how important it was for LEGO to get a foothold in as many countries as possible, even if some sacrifices had to be made. This same school of thought was applied to LEGO’s first attempt to make waves in the United States.
The European toy-making heritage may have been suppressed during wartime, especially in Germany, but across the Atlantic the toy industry had never been as prolific as it was after World War II ended. While the European manufacturers were getting back on their feet, a booming young population in the United States was hungry for consumer goods, especially new plastic toys to entertain its growing numbers of children. The year 1945 was when toy giant Mattel first opened its doors for business and it wouldn’t be long before it was producing Barbie dolls and Matchbox cars for a worldwide audience. By the end of the 1950s, the kids of America were the largest toy market out there—so it’s no surprise that the LEGO Group wanted a slice of the pie.
At this time LEGO was still establishing the System of Play and had only launched the modified new LEGO brick in 1958. Having little experience of taking on such a large market and with the wooden toys factory fire in 1960, Godtfred knew the company was not in a position to set up an American sales office. As in Britain, he would need a licensing partner to help TLG break the United States as well. After meeting with King Shwayder, the president of the Colorado-based Shwayder Bros. Trunk Company, Godtfred signed a 99-year licensing deal, giving the company exclusive rights to sell LEGO toys in North America.
Shwayder Bros. set up a separate LEGO sales division and began producing LEGO bricks out of one of its existing plants in Ontario and selling them in the United States from 1961 and Canada from 1962. Taking the name of their famous range of luggage (and later the company’s name), products were marketed as “LEGO by Samsonite.” In 1965 Samsonite built a new facility in Colorado, exclusively for LEGO products, to cope with the growing demand in the United States. Initially it offered sets that were very similar to those available in Europe—such as a Town Plan set, and supplementary gift sets, but when the new plant opened up, Samsonite began to produce its own LEGO creations, and sets far larger than TLG was making. LEGO Futura even developed exclusive pieces for the American market.
SAMSONITE
Set up by the four Shwayder brothers in 1910, the “Trunk Company” was a suitcase manufacturer that would later become known as the Samsonite Corporation—after a successful range of luggage marketed under that name. In the 1960s, its retail and plastics manufacturing experience encouraged the company to expand, and drew it to the LEGO Group where it bid on and won the license. After over 10 years of LEGO manufacturing, the license was withdrawn in 1972 and Samsonite’s association with the LEGO brand remained only in its marketing and distribution of sets in Canada until the late 1980s. The company was sold in 1973, and the Samsonite name has changed hands many times since. Samsonite is now exclusively a luggage manufacturer owned by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.
By 1963, North American sets no longer included the “by Samsonite” branding, like this wheel set (021). © Jordan Schwartz
Samsonite produced its own version of what would later be the LEGO Group’s DUPLO bricks. Trying to widen the appeal of the LEGO brand, in 1964 Samsonite produced larger bricks (measuring 1 × 2 × 4 inches) known as Jumbo Bricks in the 2 × 4 stud format, as well as toys made from the bricks, such as 1963’s Jumbo Brick Pull Toy, which came with its own Jumbo Brick wheels. Unlike the later DUPLO bricks, these were not compatible with LEGO bricks, and can easily be identified by their size and larger flat-topped studs. American consumers were also the first to be able to purchase gears and motors from as early as 1963 when the first sets incorporating this technology were available (001, 002, 003). The gears allowed builders to mechanize their designs with geared transmissions or rotating parts by connecting the simple gear discs to a wheel or wheel brick. Later an electric motor was designed by Futura, which could be incorporated. Despite the gears being physically compatible with LEGO bricks, their design and usage was not fully integrated into the System of Play—something the LEGO Group did not achieve until three years later with the introduction of the motorized train in 1966.
This Adventure Set was one of the basic building sets offered by Samsonite in the late 1960s. © Jordan Schwartz
Although the North American sets were exclusive to this territory, the choice available was consistently less than the range in Europe. The workmanship is also considered to be of a lower quality—Samsonite LEGO toys continued to be produced in celluloid acetate even when Billund had switched to the more durable and colorfast ABS, presumably to keep costs down. By 1970, the Samsonite catalog included just forty-one available items in comparison with the European catalog from the same year which listed over 100 different products. Perhaps due to the staggering size of the American market, Samsonite was forced to rely on catalog retailers to bring in sales. To these customers it offered some exclusive sets, and in an effort to bring in business, increased the number of pieces per set far beyond anything TLG had produced—one of the last sets produced by Samsonite featured in a 1973 JC Penney catalog. For just $13.99, customers could order a 1,241-piece set, which Samsonite had proudly displayed as a frontier town. This quantity over quality strategy was not common LEGO practice, and reduced profits considerably.
LEGO toys were not deemed a priority for the Samsonite Corporation, however, and it continued to expand, producing other toys, games, children’s furniture, and even ice skates, along with the luggage arm of the company. The resources allocated to generating LEGO sales and marketing the product were considerably less than U.S. toy rivals Hasbro and Mattel (Hasbro had been the first to advertise a children’s toy on television with Mr. Potato Head in 1952). That’s not to say Samsonite didn’t understand the ingenuity of the LEGO brand: One of its print adverts from 1967 described it as a toy children wouldn’t be tired of by December 26 and refers to it as “the thoughtful toy.” This seems in keeping with the creativity and play-longevity associated with the product in Denmark, but the company’s attention was split.
By the late 1960s it was clear that Samsonite’s core experience in marketing and selling luggage was not specific enough to the delicate nature of the toy industry. The LEGO Group moved to withdraw the license from Samsonite in 1972 and soon regained control of the brand in North America, establishing LEGO USA in Enfield, Connecticut.
LEGOLAND: 1968–present
The whole concept of LEGOLAND is the stuff of dreams. For any child who’s ever spread out his entire brick collection on the living room floor and marveled at the size and scale of his latest creation, visiting a place where everything he sees has been carefully reduced and reconstructed using that same toy is magical. Beyond that, it’s impossible. How can that many LEGO bricks exist in one place? How does one even contemplate producing LEGO models on such a scale and how could anyone have ever envisioned it? A land made from LEGO bricks really was the stuff of dreams, but not anymore. Now, it’s a tourist institution, a collection of internationally renowned theme parks teeming with adults and children alike, who arrive in droves to witness the engineering feats of professional LEGO designers and builders.
The original LEGOLAND, opened in 1968, still remains in the birthplace of the brick—Billund, Denmark—but its arms are far-reaching with parks now in England, California, Germany, and Florida. While the parks do serve as a glossy advertisement and retail space for the wide range of LEGO products, they’re much more than that. A place where LEGO models are built on a scale like no other, where remarkable designs can inspire intrepid young builders, and iconic landmarks of the world can be visited by strolling through a park. They may not have the real White House, Eiffel Tower, or Mount Rushmore, but what they do have is close enough.
