$850 Millennium Falcons and $680 Titanics: Grown-ps are now a gold mine for Lego

livemint.com:

MANCHESTER, England—Lego has always been a toy for children, but try telling that to its legion of adult fans. Grown-up builders, often rediscovering Lego after what aficionados refer to as the “dark age"—the void separating childhood fandom and its resumption as an adult—are increasingly helping cement the Danish company’s status as the world’s biggest toy maker by sales. “We don’t buy every new set that comes out," said Jonny Edmondson, a 38-year-old graphic designer at a mass gathering of Lego enthusiasts in Manchester in February.

“We’ve got to eat." Lego has doubled the size of its range targeting people over the age of 18 since it launched in 2020, and has made a series of ads aimed at older builders with the slogan “Adults Welcome." The best part from the company’s perspective? Adults will pay grown-up prices that kids could only dream of. Think $850 Millennium Falcons and $680 Titanics. When Lego first developed its plastic bricks in the 1950s, it had little clue that its colorful spaceships, racing cars and castles would ever appeal to anyone besides children.

Over time it noticed that many former child fans carried their love of Lego into adulthood, becoming what the company calls AFOLs, or adult fans of Lego, while other grown-ups were drawn in by collaborations with franchises such as Star Wars. Eventually the company realized that adults were a potentially lucrative audience in their own right, prompting a shift in strategy. “We decided to focus on adults because we realized that we had a much bigger opportunity than we were tapping into," said Julia Goldin, Lego’s chief product and marketing officer.