First drafted on Jan. 7th, 2023, in Shanghai
This article is based on my working experience when I was working in Kantar – Firefly Shanghai in 2019.
LEGO is a global brand, aiming to help the kids globally, to grow intellectually and happily in Childhood. In 2019, LEGO came to China with a global project firstly in US and China market, with the ambition to tap kids’ hidden passion, cultivate it and grow this passion into a life-long love.
I was involved in this project in China. I was very fortunate to work with LEGO global team, and our consulting team from Kantar global and China by talking to Chinese kids, their parents and visiting their family, spending some time playing with them.
All the kids I had observed during this project were raised in the middle or affluent families. It was assumed that they were living a happy childhood. But after this project, I can’t help wondering what true passion those kids might have. I witnessed most naturally born passions were “murdered” alive in front of my eyes but very few left to be allowed as the hobby or after-school activity. There is no happiness or true passion for children but too many “Dobby” to be forced to work long hours to perform and please the adults for better scores to prove that they are well-prepared for a promising future or glorify the whole family. 光宗耀祖.
Here are some of my observation from the site:
One 8 yr. boy played the beautiful violin in front of us, which made his mum and his grandmom so proud, but his eyes only sparkled when he drew a little something we hardly recognized with the color pen on iPad. He told us playing violin was his “professional” passion but painting was his hobby 业余 (true love, he did not say. )
One 8 yr. boy had a little sister. He was so shy with a melancholic face like an old man. His parents, his little sister and he shared a less than around 70sqm2 flat, with a folding bed designed by a Japanese interior designer to save the space. But his mum spared no money to invest in his future because he was the oldest son in the family which was to assume the responsibilities. He learned English, violin, painting… He did everything his parents told like all the good boys we saw. He only behaved like a kid not an old man was the moment when he was under the spiderman’s hood which was hidden and put in the deepest closet by his mum and only was used for social parties organized by the foreign English teacher.
One 3 or 4 yr. girl, did have a true passion. Her passion was making herself beautiful. Her parents took her to travel around the world and she loved to play with Babie dolls and put the cosmetics on her face. On the wall of their living room, there was a huge portrait of her sitting on a big, shining CHANEL logo. She was smiling big and she played naughty in her father’s arm. Her father was a loving man, and he told us there was no use to read the book for a girl. For women, the most important thing in the world was to make herself presentable in front of the public - I assumed he referred to the men.
A girl in 12, loved her school truly, because she can make friends there. She was a true social butterfly and so popular in the school. She was into Douyin (Tiktok) and created funny clips on that app all the time with her besties for fun. She attended the painting classes which was the passion encouraged by her parents, but her true passion was being with friends and had some fun. In the coming year, she had fewer and fewer such time left, because she was about under the stress from her demanding tasks when graduating from the elementary school.
One boy, 8 yrs. from a HNWI family. His family was living in a 2 floored big house. He was the only kid who owned a childhood he truly enjoyed from my perspective. He performed about 2 minutes’ street dance in front of us. Full of passion. We were so impressed by his passionate and creative moves. As all the other parents, his mum registered him for the expensive violin classes. He hated it and fought back strongly and claimed to estrange his mum and threatened to cut off the relationship with the family. They finally gave it up and let him go. He was free now and can finally indulged in his hard-earned peaceful time for some electrical games.
I filled the report in the format shared by our global team and joined the workshop with LEGO global team afterwards. I did not hear anything back but saw LEGO toy inspired by Monkey King in the China market later when I revisited LEGO stores.
It was 3-4 years ago.
Now it is 2023. Nothing changes but a pandemic, the biggest BLACK SWAN ever disrupted our life. I almost forgot about this project until I watched the movie – Matilda by Netflix recently. It reminds me that there is no childhood for long time in the human history. It has gone without our notice. In “After The Death Of The Childhood” by David Buckingham, he hold a very pessimistic conclusion like a prophet that the technology would have the destructive impact on our human being and existence esp. on our children. But Matilda today seems giving me a glimpse of hope that maybe, maybe there is something a brand like LEGO can do to save our children or motivate them to save themselves.
SAVE THE CHILDREN OR ENCOURAGE THEM TO SAVE THEMSELVES can be a true purpose to consider for a brand if it truly cares about the human being and our existence.
Purpose is never a slogan to embellish a brand for the revenue sake. It becomes a purpose because it firmly believes it from the root and makes it happen in reality. The slogan which needs to be written down on the paper in black and white with a date to become a goal. And it needs to be broken down to become a plan. And this plan must be backed by the brand owners with actions and it becomes the final reality.
LEGO’s Harry Potter series’ huge success in the world has proved that kids can be the great wizards to defeat the Lord Voldemort.
We have The Wonderful Wizard of OZ to help our children to across the magic land, learn how to make friends along the journey to Emerald City and found the biggest secret in the world that OZ, the greatest and unbeatable magician, indeed is an old and common man. And she finally found the way back home with some little help from her friends, to her dear aunt and uncle on the Kansas prairie.
We have The Hunger Game. Children can be the leader to save us from dystopia.
We have Ander’s game – children are the fierce fighters to defeat the aliens from the outer space.
In Japan, we have Chihiro from Spirited Away to save her parents who were turned into pigs because of glutton and to escape from the hand of the cruel witch.
In China, we have more than just Monkey King.
We have Nezha born from a big lotus to conquer the Dragon King.
We have prince Chen Xiang to rescue his suffering mother from the dragon swamp.
We have Danshen (literally “born from an egg”) from The Legend of Sealed Book天书奇谈to slay the devil on the earth.
There are countless hidden treasure in Chinese and other country’s mythology and literature as big IP for the brands to consider for co-branding to drive this purpose into reality. Save our children.
Children are the magic. Be a brand to truly understand them, hear their unsaid words with a heart willing to listen and see their little hidden secrets with the mind eye to feel.
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