Edit: April Fool’s everyone! Gotcha!
BILLUND – The LEGO Group today announced the completion of its $1.4 billion acquisition of China-based clone brand manufacturer LEPIN.
LEPIN is best known for copping plenty of hate from the Adult Fan of LEGO (AFOL) community by ripping off fan-made designs and ripping off LEGO designs in addition to various other intellectual property law violations.
The acquisition bolsters LEGO’s strategy of “looking East” and gives the Danish toymaker additional production and manufacturing bandwidth as it looks to expand its footprint in the lucrative Asian market.
The LEGO Group’s move was encouraged after an executive in China failed to tell the difference between a LEGO and LEPIN minifigure, which gave confidence to the Danish company that LEPIN’s manufacturing has caught up with their own.
Duben Fühl, VP of Merger and Acquisitions, said: “This acquisition strengthens The LEGO Group’s position as the global leader in toys. We see tremendous levels of synergy being created between the two companies, especially since most of our products are almost identical to one another.”
As part of the acquisition, The LEGO Group has also announced that the LEPIN brand will be maintained, and folded into LEGO’s existing repertoire of products, occupying its own theme.
The LEPIN theme will be targeted at budget-conscious consumers and shoppers that prefer to buy their toys from dodgy dollar-stores, street markets and AliExpress, avenues where The LEGO Group has failed to penetrate.
“For years, AFOLs have complained about the rising prices of LEGO on internet forums and LEGO blogs. As a brand that cares about our most important demographic, adult males in their 30s with large disposable incomes and active social media profiles, we believe that LEPIN will allow our fans to enjoy many of our existing sets at much lower prices.”
“We fully intend to maintain LEPIN’s iconic lack of clutch power and inconsistent tolerances, which is a core part of the clone brand’s appeal. To ensure that LEPIN bricks stick together, every set will ship with our new Kragle™ adhesive to enhance the longevity of the sets.”
“Nothing has more clutch power than Kragle™”, added Ms. Fühl.
The new LEPIN theme also allows The LEGO Group to release many of its most popular discontinued sets such as the UCS Millennium Falcon, Cafe Corner and Grand Carousel which were historically priced out of reach for many LEGO fans.
Ms. Fühl finally adds “Now that LEPIN is officially part of The LEGO Group, we hope that AFOL fans can finally stop pestering us to re-release the UCS Millennium Falcon and make all our sets cheaper”.
LEGOfanblue says
Haha. Neat April fools joke. When will you be revealing winners for the 2×4 day contest?
LEGOfanblue says
Haha. Good April fools joke. When will you be revealing winners for the 2×4 day contest?
Jay says
hey dude, the winners were announced in the previous post! https://jaysbrickblog.com/2017/04/02/happy-2×4-day-2017-announcing-the-winners-from-the-2×4-build-challenge/
LEGOfanblue says
Haha. Nice April fools joke. When will you be announcing the winners for the 2×4 day contest? Thanks
Jay says
It’s announced!
goodbuy555 says
ha ha ha…
but !!!
Those Lepin replicas are so good, that Lego executives think its real Lego !!! Take a look:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38729557
Jay says
Haha that was a great article, but to be fair, it’s probably not his job to determine real minifigures from fakes.
Julie says
True. But in the end, the customers decide LEGO’s succes over the competitors. WIll THEY be able to tell the difference between the minifigues any better than the Lego executive? 🙂
VaderFan2187 says
This is hilarious lol! Better than Brickset’s 😛
Jay says
I think everyone’s was great – there were some really good variety with the April Fools jokes this year. Brothers Brick’s piece was also pretty well written!
Greg says
Ha Ha That’s funny. Love the last bit.
Jay says
Glad you liked it!
Johnnypumpkin Seed says
First Brickset’s Game of Thrones theme fib and now this?! I fell for both stories up until the point where details are mentioned that don’t fit the company culture. “As a brand that cares about our most important demographic, adult males in their 30s with large disposable incomes and active social media profiles, we believe that LEPIN will allow our fans to enjoy many of our existing sets at much lower prices.”
Yeah no way anyone at LEGO would ever say that.
Jay says
Haha, yeah, I had to progressively make it sound more ridiculous towards the end. Don’t want to end up being labelled as fake news!
Shaun says
Haha I nearly believed it, but you the fool cos it’s after 12
Jay says
Heh!
Hammerdragon says
Had me right up until the lack of clutch power. Good one
Jay says
I had to go extra wacky towards the end, lest people started believing it!
Sgoteam says
XD Happy April Fools Day everyone!!!!
Jay says
😛
Stephan says
Well played ?
Jay says
😀
Claire says
???? Best April fools I’ve had in a long time!! Good one, Jay!!
Jay says
You’re welcome! Glad you enjoyed it, haha. I sure had fun writing it and was giggling to myself throughout.
JACKATTACKS says
Well, that is extremely interesting. So Lego is going to start making purposefully dodgy parts so that they can go to cheaper versions of actual sets? Well this is going to be interesting….
JACKATTACKS says
Wow. I really fell for that, didn’t I?
Haha. Nice one.
VaderFan2187 says
Wait are you serious? XD
Jay says
Hah, gotcha! That makes me happy that it was just believable enough, heh.
Grimm says
Ha! April Fools! A bottle of kragle with every set.. hilarious. The Rarity and collectibility of LEGO products make it well worth the price of the real deal. Just check out the turn around prices on Minifigures alone. Good stuff Jay thanks for the laugh
Jay says
Glad you enjoyed the joke!
Scott says
Like 🙂
Jay says
🙂