Our exclusives is a series of exclusives interviews to Brandberries, done with a handful selection of the region’s finest business leaders on how do they see their respective industries in a post-pandemic Middle East. The first in the series is an exclusive interview with Jeroen Beijer, General Manager and Vice President of LEGO MEA, for his reflections and resolutions for the region amidst a global crisis that redefined building brands.

Jeroen Beijer, General Manager and Vice President of LEGO MEA

BB: COVID-19 hit and the whole world of brands braced for impact.  All except one brand: LEGO brand. Numbers show that the brand consumer sales surged up 14% in the first half of 2020. What was The LEGO Group doing right in such a crisis?

JB: In times of crisis people look for brands that they trust and recognize and clearly LEGO brand was one of those brands that consumers gravitated towards.

When the crisis started LEGO brand had its priorities in the right order. Priority number one was to make sure that the children, shoppers, staff, and our partners are all safe. The second priority was to make sure that our global supply chain was fully capable and equipped to face the challenge and meet the surge in demand.

The crisis is a defining event in our generation and has been particularly impactful on children. At the height of the crisis it was estimated that nearly 1.6 billion children around the world have been affected by school closures and were sitting at home. Many of these children don’t have the option of online home schooling.  Add to that, adults were also stuck at home and were looking for ways to entertain themselves and their children. Some turned to digital devices or TV as a source of entertainment while others turned to LEGO brand building as an alternative and creative activity at home.

Staying at home comes with many challenges.  For example many parents work at home while children are there as well. At LEGO brand we started to think of ways we can help families to stay creative, engaged, and connected during COVID. We launched a campaign called “Let’s build together” through which we shared many ideas to help families create nice moments together and have fun.

With stores shutting down everywhere there was a huge shift towards e-commerce. Lucky for LEGO brand, we were well prepared for this having already invested a lot in e-commerce.

BB: In retrospect, what are the lessons learned from the pandemic crisis?

JB: There are three main lessons learned from the crisis:

The first lesson is that during a crisis you need to put your people first and make sure that your team and customers are all safe and secure. The brand spent a huge amount of time to make sure that we supported and cared for the well being of our colleagues and employees that were working from home. It is important that you take care of your people so your people take care of your business.

Secondly, in uncertain times people turn to what they know and trust. LEGO brand is one of the most known and respected brands in the world therefore during the crisis people turned to the brands they trusted and respected.

Finally, sometimes reality is hard to predict. It has been extremely difficultly to predict how the pandemic would play out. We had multiple scenarios that were crafted and ended in the trash bin. Although we are now entering a new phase, the “new normal”, we continue to see disruptions.

BB: Moving forward, can you give us a bit of insight on the future of the business?

JB: I see a bright future ahead of us. With the help of our strong financials we will continue to make significant investments in several areas to strengthen the organization. For example we are investing in sustainability, digitalization, e-commerce, and our supply chain networks. We continue to strengthen our brand and also our LEGO branded channels.

If we look specifically at the MEA region we have made significant progress in our GCC direct to retail strategy, and by 2022 we will be servicing all major retailers directly from our warehouses in Dubai.

As much as we are a global brand and are well known in certain parts of the world, we still have some milestones to achieve in the Middle East and Africa and we want to strengthen our approach in these areas and increase our investments. This is vital because when you look at the region there are roughly 1.5 billion people, which represents a huge future potential for LEGO brand and its products. We are working very hard to reach more children tomorrow than today.

Also globally, we will continue to roll out our LEGO branded retail stores. We feel that this is important because this is an area where we can really make the LEGO brand come alive for the consumer and experience the full breadth of the portfolio and LEGO brand experience.

BB: LEGO brand is a brand that has shown great resilience. Since its establishment in 1932 LEGO brand has become way more than “one of the world’s leading manufacturers of play materials.”  In your opinion, over the years how has the brand maintained its relevance for children and adults from all over the world?

JB: It’s definitely not easy staying relevant. At LEGO brand we spend a lot of money and effort to make sure we have the best “play experience” in the world and that includes many elements such as: how we do ensure the right quality of our product, ensuring the experience safe and that everything is tested correctly. When children are looking at our building instructions, is there a step that needs to be optimized.

We do a lot of testing of both inner product quality and in the building experience.

We have a slogan “only the best is good enough”, we constantly benchmark to ensure that we reached the highest quality in the building experience.

We launch a lot of new products every year and we try to tap into what we know is loved by children and adults.

We are seeing an increased interest from adults and we were able to tap into different passions such as LEGO brand botanicals that allows them to build plants and flowers, We also know that a lot of adults are into architecture, cars, football and we try to cater to these passions

As the world is getting more digitized some people prefer digital play rather than physical play. At LEGO brand we like to see this as a continuum, we call it “fluid play.” We will continue to explore propositions that bridge the physical with the digital experience. A great example is LEGO Super Mario, where we collaborated with Nintendo to create a game experience outside the Nintendo platform and it is dong extremely well.

Lastly at LEGO brand everybody behaves in a very inclusive manner and we embrace all differences.

BB: On February 2019 LEGO brand opened its new Business Unit headquarters for the Middle East and African Dubai. What can you tell us about the LEGO brand consumer behavior in the MENA region? 

JB: I believe that kids are similar all over the world, they are playful and creative, and they want to explore the world. If you give any child a couple of LEGO set bricks, they intuitively start putting them together.

The MEA region has some differences in terms of spending power which differ from country to country. This has been one of our main challenges in the region. In some countries LEGO sets is affordable while in other countries it’s considered an expensive toy.

Another challenge, in our region children know LEGO brand but their parents are not so familiar with it or with the benefits of the LEGO play experience. Therefore this is a big challenge as well as an opportunity to educate people in the region about what LEGO brand as a brand stands for and what is the LEGO play experience and why is it beneficial for kids to play with LEGO sets.

BB: Will we be seeing LEGO brand sponsored building competitions in the MENA region soon?

JB: If we are talking about the LEGO League which is an international competition where kids in elementary and secondary schools compete with LEGO robotics to solve challenges, the answer is unequivocally yes. There is already a LEGO league competition in Dubai and we will be seeing many more popping up soon in the region.

BB: We can’t end this interview without asking you, what is your favorite LEGO set?

JB: I would have to pick two.

The first one is the Galaxy Explorer set because it was my first LEGO set as a child.

The second would be the LEGO Creator Explorer Rollercoaster for which I have a very fond memory. A few years back when I first arrived in the region I had the set in my room and I got ill and had to stay home for a week. At that time my son was six and he wanted to help me build it.  It was a bit advanced for his age but he was very persistent and everyday we worked together on it until it was finally finished and is currently sitting on our living room.