1. Analysis & Outlook
Crowdsourcing Innovation: Lego Cuusoo website&MinecraftMicroworld success Case
Study
Lego is a popular line of construction toys that consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and
accompanied byrange of gears, minifigures and various other partsthat can be assembled and
connected in different ways, to build vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. One of the
biggest selling points of Lego Toys despite being costly is that toys stimulate the imagination
and creativity of the customers.Lego was almost bankrupt in the 2004, as children turned away
from the plastic bricks in favor of video games and computers and according to Harvard
Business Review, “Central to LEGO’s turnaround is a new structure for strategically
coordinating innovation activities, led by a cross-functional team: the Executive Innovation
Governance Group. LEGO managers take a broad view of innovation that includes not only new
products but pricing plans, community building, business processes, and channels to market, all
of which can be powerful business drivers. The company distributes responsibilities for
innovation in all areas across four groups and expects different degrees of innovativeness from
each of them.”
Innovation is at the heart of the Lego survival and further continuation of its innovation strategy,
Lego launched Cuusoo website in 2008 which allows users to submit ideas for Lego products to
be turned into potential sets and users may create a page about their proposed idea for a set. Once
the project reaches 10,000 supporters, it is then reviewed by the Cuusoo team who then decide
on whether to produce it andonce decided to produce, the ideator receives a 1% royalty on the
net revenue.All the ideasrelated to alcohol, sex, drugs, religious references, post-WWII warfare
or based on a first person shooter that are deemed inappropriate for younger Lego fans are
rejected by the company. The term Cuusoo is Japanese and means imagination or wish. Cuusoo
System, a subsidiary of the Japanese Elephant Designs, has been collaborating with LEGO for
the past ten years and the company currently manages two platforms, Cuusoo MUJI and Lego
Cuusoo. There are about 340,000 active users and 90 percent of Lego Cuusoo users come from
overseas. Lego Cuusoo website also helps in strengthening the Lego player community as player
and user communities are essential for the innovation and brand building strategy of the
company. Along with company’s internal designers, the Cuusoo community innovators will
speed up the product innovation process and bring new innovative products to the market on
regular basis.
Some of the ideas that already hit the shelves are Shinkai 6500, a model based on a
realsubmarine, Hayabusa 369-piece, model of the Japanese spacecraft was made by Daisuke
Okubo and Lego Minecraft, a set based on the video game Minecraft. Lego Minecraft Micro
World is a Lego set based on the sandbox video game Minecraft, which revolves around the
game's player character, Steve, and one of the game's enemies, the Creeper. Mojang started a
project on the Lego CUUSOO program and within a matter of days; the 10,000 signature
objective was achieved with support of Minecraft community. Sandbox is a type of video game
level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and has tools to modify the
world themselves and create how they play. According to Forbes, “Minecraft is a legitimate
Rajesh Prabhakar Analyst Bio @ http://socialmediacases.blogspot.com/

2. Analysis & Outlook
worldwide phenomenon, a building block video game that launched in 2009 and now has over 8
million paying customers and a total of 40 million users worldwide, its own conference, and a
legion of YouTube stars.” Lego Minecraft Micro World was widely popular which led to
shortages as both Minecraft players and other enthusiasts bought this upon its release and forced
to ship more sets during the holidays.
Lego innovation platform Cuusoo is a win-win for both the Lego player community and the
company as number of ideas generated will be more and company can rely on its player
community and other creative players whose ideas will be more relevant and chance of them
being successful will be more compared to the ideas by internal designers within Lego. This is
also most cost effective, speedier and easiest way of engaging with player and creative
communities and they are just sharing only 1% of net revenues as royalty. The voting mechanism
not only helps in selecting the best ideas but also helps in creating buzz about the product even
before they are manufactured and there will be a ready market available even before the product
launch who will be interested to buy. Crowdsourcing innovation is being adopted by businesses
and Lego is one company that is using this methodology extremely effectively and as discussed
innovation and creativity are essential for Lego’s long term survival. Lego is facing tough
competition from videogames and online based games that are attracting the players more.Lego
has to constantly innovate and launch new sets on regular basis to keep its consumers attracted to
its product.
Rajesh Prabhakar Analyst Bio @ http://socialmediacases.blogspot.com/