LEGO Group's Harry Potter Product Line: MKTG1001 Marketing Report

This report analyzes the marketing strategies employed by the LEGO Group, focusing on its Harry Potter product line. It identifies middle-aged parents as the primary target market segment, aiming to connect with their children through nostalgic toys. The report explores how LEGO leverages the Harry Potter franchise's popularity through licensed products tied to movies and other media. It examines the customer needs fulfilled by these products, using Maslow's hierarchy, and details LEGO's effective multichannel marketing mix, encompassing product quality, pricing strategies, and distribution channels. The report concludes that LEGO's success stems from its understanding of its target market and its ability to meet customer demands through a well-executed marketing strategy.

MKTG1001:
Foundations of
Marketing,
Assessment Item Two
Individual Report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The company which was chosen for this project is the LEGO group with the focus laid on its
Harry Potter product line as when it comes to toy manufacturing, the company is the best in the
world and many important things can be learned from researching its marketing campaigns. It
was found that the best possible customer segment for this product line will be middle aged
parents who want to buy LEGO brick sets of Harry Potter for their children. The main findings
of the report include that LEGO has successfully utilized a multichannel place mix to gain
success in the market and has fulfilled major needs of the customer segment.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...........................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
Brand and company background.......................................................................................4
Market and target market segment....................................................................................5
Needs, wants and demands..................................................................................................7
The marketing strategy (Marketing Mix 4P’s)..................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
This report will be executed in the organizational context of LEGO company which is a
Danish multinational toy manufacturer which primarily consists of interlocking plastic bricks,
founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen and has gone on to conduct business in more than 100
countries with extremely varied product line offerings (Tuzovic, 2021). The report will highlight
the marketing process the company undertakes to promote and sell its Harry Potter themed
product line which is based on a bestselling book of the same name by J.K. Rowling.
This report will highlight the complex activities and considerations involved in the processes of
modern day business marketing. There will be key discussions on important marketing functions
such as information about product line offerings of the company, its ways to segment the target
market, choosing the optimum segment for promotion and targeting, identifying the various
desires of the identified market audience along with the way LEGO company uses the different
marketing mix elements to promote its Harry Potter themed product line (McAllister & LaGroue,
2019).
MAIN BODY
Brand and company background
The LEGO group has come a long way from being established in 1932 as it has gained a
strong foothold on the toy industry and its signature toy structure of the LEGO brick has become
a monumental part of the global pop culture. The company focuses on making toys for children
with focus on theming its LEGO brick sets around different popular series and characters for
maximum engagement with the youth. The group has maintained more than 1000 different
LEGO sets for the purpose of sale with themes ranging from Star Wars and Ninjago all the way
to Marvel and DC superheroes which has resulted in the company getting recognized with the
‘Toy of the century’ award twice. The LEGO group’s major focus has been to provide quality
toys which not only help young children collect and immerse themed products of their favourite
characters and franchises but also make them build different structures and toy shapes which
helps foster creativity and problem solving skills from a young age. Out of all the popular themes

which LEGO uses to build its brick shaped toys, not many have been able to splash serious profit
waves over the company but the popular ones have become mainstream classics.
Some of the most popular LEGO sets include those centred around Star Wars, Marvel
and DC superheroes and Harry Potter themed brick sets. Out of all these product lines, the Harry
Potter LEGO brand has been especially popular for the company has helped define the pathway
to financial success when it comes to toy building and using media and franchise rights to their
maximum potential. The theme of Harry Potter LEGO sets is built around the massive franchise
of the same name written by celebrated author, J.K. Rowling and it enjoys extreme levels of
worldwide hype as the franchise has several bestselling novels and a super successful 8 film
series under its belt which have grossed millions at the box office. The toys that LEGO builds
under the Harry Potter brand is licensed by Warner Brothers and are typically tie-ins to
supplement the release of major events such as movie releases. Each toy line contains miniature
action figures, interactive bricks which can be broken and connected in different ways to make
various popular buildings, environments and tools found in the expansive Harry Potter universe.
The firm’s marketing campaign centres a lot around this brand line as the product remains in
demand throughout and also has future sets coming to tie-in with the ‘Fantastic beasts and where

to find them’ movies which are still being made to this day (LEGO Harry Potter Summer 2022
Sets Revealed, 2022).
Market and target market segment
LEGO group is one of the most decorated and successful toy makers to ever grace the
industry on a global level and as such, proper segmentation and identification of their target
market and intended audience has been a major reason behind their continued success in major
world markets such as U.S.A, UK and Australia just to name a few (Galotti et.al., 2022). There
are many ways to segment the market as the customers that are present in a region or target
market can be divided based on various relative factors which are also used by the LEGO
company. Some metrics which the group uses to segment the audience for catering of its Harry
Potter themed product lines are highlighted herein.
Demographic
Age – The entire brand strategy of the LEGO group centres around catering their toys around
children as the themes in which the products are moulded are designed for toddlers to immerse
themselves into and engage with properly. LEGO typically targets children between the ages of 1
and 15 as it includes both young children which find the themes attractive and teenagers who
find more fun in building various toys with the detachable LEGO bricks. The company also
markets the Harry Potter product line among middle aged people which have grown up on Harry

Potter and would like to relive the series through toys (Harry Potter and the LEGO set that won’t
stop selling out, 2022).
Family Size – The company also segments customers based on their family size and whether
they have children on not as most of the sales of its Harry Potter product line comes from people
who are nostalgic as they lived with the characters during their childhood in the early 20’s and
want their kids introduced to the magical world full of interesting lore and creatures.
Income – LEGO also segregates based on the income level of its customers as many different
variants and offerings of the Harry Potter brand line are on the expensive end especially for small
children to afford without the aid of their parents and their supervision.
Psychographic
Personality – Harry Potter as a brand does not hold the near universal hold on pop culture and
film enthusiasts as it once did about a decade ago as the films have ended a long time back along
with the novelization. The group segments pop culture enthusiasts and nostalgic fans of the
franchise from other audience as this part of the fan base will buy the products at any cost.
Behavioural
Purchase occasion – The company also uses metrics such as the purchase history of people to
separate them from other part of the customer demographics as people who have already bought
a LEGO set for their children or themselves are bound to return at some point as the toy making
quality of the firm is world class.
Attitude towards product – The feedbacks and reviews left by the product purchasers are also
sued as an important metric for the purpose of LEGO’s market segmentation as it separately
advertises to such people to build a budding community of fans and followers. Harry Potter
products are very popular among young children and teenagers and their attitude is generally
positive towards the company (Fanning, 2021).
After the detailed research regarding the company’s segmentation process, the one
particular customer segment which the company should focus on the most and current does in
many aspects is the middle aged customers who are fans of the Harry Potter franchise and want
to purchase its LEGO themed sets for their children to experience.

Needs, wants and demands
The level of needs which the Harry Potter brand line of LEGO brick sets satisfy are quite
compressive as the variety of sets released all contain unique features and brick layout which
changes the utility and value derived from each purchase differently for the chosen customer
segment. The needs of the middle aged parent consumer segment which are fulfilled from the
chosen brand line of LEGO sets are described herein using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
 Love and belonging – Connection to family is a very important need fulfilled by the
LEGO brick toys as parents use them to connect with their kids, help them build various
constructions and shapes and the toys make both groups spend quality time and bonding
with each other.
 Esteem – These needs are connected to the feeling of positively regarding oneself both
intrinsically and extrinsically, in the chosen customer segment for the Harry Potter
product line, parents feel great about themselves when they gift LEGO sets to their
children and also feel appreciated when their kid thank them and appreciate them for such
wonderful toys.
The LEGO group has expertly marketed the Harry Potter product lines in markets such as
Australia where there is a massive following of the franchise by making separate sets for each of
the movies because classic sets such as those from the early 2000’s featuring movies such as
‘Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ are
purchased by parents for themselves as well due to nostalgia factor attached to the product. The
company is also coming up with new toys surrounding the spin-off of Fantastic beasts and where
to find them to engage more kids at a rapid pace in the Australian market.
The LEGO group maintains a tightly and expertly run supply chain which makes sure
that the rapid demand which arrives at the time of a movie tie-in gets met without hiccups and
the level of customer buying power in the chosen customer segment is quite low as the general
quality of the goods produced in the Harry Potter line are of satisfactory quality and parents see
LEGO as a trustable brand for kids.

The marketing strategy (Marketing Mix 4P’s)
Product – The Harry Potter range of product line which is among the bestselling toy ranges that
the company has ever produced has a dynamic range consisting of multiple different products
ranging from sets themed around building the Hogwarts castle and expansive set pieces found in
different movies. The brick toy line is also supplemented by the LEGO Harry Potter video games
which have all been reviewed positively by video game publications. The toy line is of consistent
high quality and the Fantastic Beasts mini-figure series was awarded heavily by getting both
‘Toy of the year’ and ‘collective of the year’ in 2019.
Price – Different sets are priced much differently according to the scope and size of the toy and
the demand is relatively inelastic as LEGO has no true competitor or market alternative in the
brick building toy department. Toy sets which are designed to be around one specific event from
the movie or an action sequence involving characters are in the range of 40-45 Australian dollars
while castle building sets can go upwards of 60 Australian dollars making them an expensive
option. There are various discounts running at all products which usually brings down the
average price of all sets to around 40 Australian dollars.
Place – Bering a multinational brand operating in more than hundred countries worldwide, the
reasoning behind the success of LEGO group and its Harry Potter product line has been a robust
multichannel strategy of sales channels which comprise of both digital and physical channels
(How Lego is using digital and physical retail to reimagine the toy store, 2021). The company
sells directly from its website in markets such as Australia while also having trademark stores in
the country as it has seven of them in Australia. The firm also sells its products through
multichannel outlooks of retailers that it has partnered up with such as Toys R US and Target.

Promotion – The Harry Potter toy lines are usually promoted alongside a movie tie-in and are a
part of the movie’s press tours, advertisement campaigns and also feature endorsements from the
celebrity cast in some cases (Relive 20 years of LEGO® Harry Potter with actor Matthew Lewis
and his favourite scenes!, 2022). The new and upcoming sets are given to popular social media
influencers and Harry Potter centric pages and content creators for unboxing and building videos
for social media promotion and digital marketing. Retailers are also paid to heavily promote the
product line making the general public through word of mouth and hype marketing campaigns.
CONCLUSION
The above report went into detail regarding the various processes involved in the successful
marketing of a toy product line with key focus on important activities such as segmentation,
audience identification and roper use of marketing mix elements. The major findings which were
outlined by this report included that successful product lines must only be marketed after their
best possible target audience has a been identified through segmentation and the toy product
lines must satisfy some highly requested needs and desires of the target market to be in demand
throughout the year.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Tuzovic, S. (2021). LEGO: Leading the Way to a Sustainable Future–Brick by Brick.
McAllister, M. P., & LaGroue, J. (2019). “Hey, Kids. Who Wants a Shot from the Merch
Gun?!”: LEGO Batman as a Gateway Commodity Intertext. In Cultural Studies of
LEGO (pp. 47-71). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Galotti, K. M et.al., (2022). Accio Knowledge: Children's Knowledge Acquisition in the Domain
of Harry Potter. The American Journal of Psychology, 135(1), 97-108.
Fanning, C. (2021). Constructed Pasts: Narratives of Home, History, and Otherness in LEGO.
The Public Historian, 43(1), 39-61.
Online referencing
Relive 20 years of LEGO® Harry Potter with actor Matthew Lewis and his favourite scenes!,
2022 [online] available through <https://www.toypro.com/en/news/738/relive-20-years-of-lego-
harry-potter-with-actor-matthew-lewis-and-his-favourite-scenes>
Harry Potter and the LEGO set that won’t stop selling out, 2022 [online] available through
<https://www.brickfanatics.com/harry-potter-lego-set-wont-stop-selling-out/>
LEGO Harry Potter Summer 2022 Sets Revealed, 2022 [online] available through
<https://www.thebrickfan.com/lego-harry-potter-summer-2022-sets-revealed/>
How Lego is using digital and physical retail to reimagine the toy store, 2021 [online] available
through <https://internetretailing.net/strategy-and-innovation/strategy-and-innovation/lego-sees-
multichannel-investment-pay-off-as-ecommerce-expanded-fast-during-covid-19-21942>