In our ongoing series, Pitch BrandTalk, Bhavana Mandon, Country Manager, The LEGO Group, India shares the highlights of the brand’s journey in India, how the brand successfully taps into each child’s passion points to encourage them to build what they love. She also speaks of The LEGO Group’s future plan in India which includes focusing on creating experiences, launching LEGO concept stores in the country and collaborating with Indian brands.

The LEGO Group formally entered India in 2020 – during the pandemic year – and since then the company has been looking to grow its presence brick by brick. The LEGO Group recently announced Bhavana Mandon as the Country Manager, The LEGO Group, India, whose immediate top priority is to foster love for the brand with children, their parents and adults, drive brand experience and strengthen the brand presence and distribution across the country. 

?Small Hands, Big Dreams

The LEGO Group launched its ?Small Hands, Big Dreams initiative in India to highlight the benefits of family play, and how play impacts children’s physical, emotional and mental well-being and helps develop developmental skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, creativity etc. With several research and studies highlighting the importance of play Mandon says, “The idea of Small Hands, Big Dreams, was to bring the various studies into a format that is palatable to parents, by helping them understand what play means and how they can indulge their kids with playful parenting.” She continues, “The platform brings together like-minded parents and discusses their real stories, challenges and how they circumvented them. We also have key opinion leaders – artists, doctors, educators, child psychologists - who also highlight the importance of play in developing the skills for children to develop strong familial bonds.” 

The LEGO Brick Differentiator 

The core strength for the brand is that the LEGO bricks can take up any shape and form, all dependant on the child’s imagination. Simply put, an individual child’s passions – be it cars, castles, animals, ninjas, space or engineering – can be translated at play with the LEGO bricks. Mandon says, “We utilize the passion point route to reach out to children, which essentially means that once you own a LEGO set, you can actually convert it from a ninja set to a car or a magical castle or to whatever you want to build and create. Hence our primary positioning to children is build what you love.”

A common perception of products from The LEGO Group in India is the expensive price point. To tackle this perception, the company has launched LEGO brick sets in India starting at a price-point of Rs 449/- and 150 plus sets – 1/3rd of its assortment, is priced below Rs 2000/-. Mandon states, “We depend a lot on conveying the message of repeatability. A LEGO set is essentially forever. The first LEGO bricks that were created in the 1930s still can fit into any LEGO brick set that is produced today; the concept of build and rebuild allows you to actually play with the same toy. That is where you get maximum value out of what you have purchased.”

Known globally for its brand collaborations, the question is will see a collaboration with Indian brands? The answer is yes as the brand is exploring partnerships with local brands.

Growing Brick By Brick

A recent report stated that the size of the Indian toy market was U.S. Dollars 1.7 billion in 2023 and this is expected to reach U.S. Dollars 4.4 billion by 2032. In addition, India is also home to the largest number of kids in the world and this makes the country “a very exciting market” with a “massive potential”. Commenting on growth she says, “Last year, we grew over 100% plus and given the small base that we were at, it is scratching the surface as yet. We definitely want to make it bigger here on.”

With the crux of the brand being “creating experiences”, the company is slated to open the much-loved LEGO concept stores in India. “Very soon is going to be my answer and you will see the LEGO stores in India as well. As a team, we have been working towards it and we are excited about what we are preparing.”

Looking ahead, The LEGO Group is betting that “2024 is going to be bigger, better, bolder in terms of play for the organization.” Mandon explains, “We are quite excited about our portfolio this year. It is going to be the largest ever portfolio that we brought to India. We'll have close to 600 active sets with over 300 new launches, which means a lot of new passion points and themes for kids. What I'm also very excited about is that we are also bringing in a whole new assortment for adults.”