Girls Advocacy Group Sets SPARKS Flying Over New LEGO Line

Jan 18, 2012
Elizabeth Richards

LEGO original girl figurines were similar to boys, but not so with new Friends line - Photo courtesy: jeltovski

LEGO's newest toy, LEGO® Friends has created controversy, attention and a social media backlash.

It all started simply enough. A big, popular toy company launched a new product line after 4 years of what they considered solid research (and a ton of money). Pretty cut and dry. Or so LEGO, the world’s fourth largest toymaker, thought. What the Danish company didn’t count on was a major flaw in their research, causing the ensuing backlash for their newest marketing campaign.

SPARK, Powered by Girl and Change.org, Petition to Change Marketing of LEGO® Friends

As of mid-January, almost 50,000 people have signed a petition started by SPARK Movement (an advocacy group working to end the sexualization of girl), asking LEGO to change their marketing strategy. According to the petition request, LEGO’s CEO Jorgan Vig Knudstorp is quoted as saying the company started the LEGO® Friends line because they wanted “to reach the other 50% of the world’s population.”

SPARK aptly describes LEGO® Friends as a “pink, 'Barbie-licious' product line for girls….(a product that) 5-year-olds can imagine themselves at the café, lounging at the pool with drinks, brushing their hair in front of a vanity mirror, singing in a club, or shopping with their girlfriends.” While all fun activities, many people (male and female) have noted that LEGO toys have historically encouraged imagination and creativity. The problem, most agree, is that the LEGO® Friends line is very limited and being marketed as gender-biased.

The Perceived Mistakes of the Marketing of LEGO® Friends

Two distinct problems exist with the current marketing tactic of the “other 50 percent” line:

First, the campaign is segregating. Boys might enjoy playing with Friends' “miniFigs” and girls still enjoy playing with original (also insultingly called “regular” by LEGO). Yet girls are only featured in the current Friends ads.
The second problem: LEGOs original product line used to feature both boys and girls but in the last two decades, girls have vanished completely from both the television commercials and print ads of traditional LEGO.

The Purpose and Misconceptions of the Change.org Petition

Here’s a key fact to keep in mind: the SPARK petition request is just to get LEGO to change the advertisement and marketing of the product line, not stop selling the product. However, as the story gains momentum and notoriety through major media outlets, many reporters and radio hosts are incorrectly stating or summarizing that SPARK wants LEGO to stop selling the LEGO® Friends, which is not the case.

LEGO® has responded that they plan to consider consumer concern to the new line; but after spending more than 40 million dollars on the Friends’ marketing campaign and a reported millions more in research, it’s hard to imagine how they will change anything quickly.

Girls want Pink and Pretty (not really)…

….they’re just told they do. Some people are quick to criticize SPARK’s petition, saying little girls “want to play with pink toys" or "relate to the characters” better. However, Dr. Lise Eliot, Ph. D., neuroscientist and author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain notes that social factors like adventure and play are proving to be far more powerful in gender stereotyping than previously realized. Girls might want to play with pink because from the time they are very little, they are told they should play with pink. Traditional LEGO play develops spatial, mathematical, and fine motor skills but the very limiting Friends line does not.

Bailey Shoemaker Richards, one of the co-founders of the SPARK petition, points out that even more concerning is the fact that girls who grow up primarily playing with limited toys like Friends consistently score lower on tests and lag behind boys who are encouraged to "tinker" and play with mechanical and building play.

Richards reiterates the goal of the SPARK petition isn’t to get LEGO to stop making the Friends line, but rather to include girls in the marketing of traditional LEGO products (as seen in the accompanying picture from a 1980 LEGO ad ) and not limit the marketing of any brand to one gender.

References and Additional Resources:

Change.org "Tell LEGO to Stop Selling Out Girls"
Youtube.com "LEGO Friends SPARK Change" January, 2012
Business Week Magazine "LEGOS Is for Girls"; Dec. 2011, Retrieved 18 Jan. 2012
The Nation: Beyond Pink vs Blue Dana Goldstein
Pink Brain, Blue Brain, How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps -- And What We Can Do About It ; Eliot, Lise Ph. D; Houghton Mifflin, 2009
Spotlight Digital Media and Learning "LEGO Called Upon to Treat Girls and Boys as Equals"; Christine C.