Today marks the start of both the Toy Fair season and the London Toy Fair. The LEGO Group are at the show and has shared a press release detailing a few details of the things to come in 2023. Before getting too excited, that doesn’t include any new product releases. Instead, it details the rebooted LEGO Friends Universe, along with one of the new Friends sets being named a 2023 Hero Toy winner. Learn more below.
THE LEGO GROUP TO CONTINUE TO DRIVE EVOLUTION OF PLAY EXPERIENCES FOR BUILDERS OF ALL AGES IN 2023
- The LEGO Group to build on success of 2022, which saw it retain its position as the #1 UK toy manufacturer for the eighth year running*
- A series of new play innovations to launch in 2023 as well as a continued commitment to ensuring LEGO® Play is inclusive for everyone
- LEGO Friends Heartlake Downtown Diner named Toy Fair 2023 Hero Toy Winner
London Toy Fair, 24th January 2023: Building on a successful 2022, which marked 90 years of LEGO® play, the LEGO Group will continue to drive the evolution of play through 2023 with new play innovations for builders of all ages.
This comes as NPD data reveals The LEGO Group is the UK’s number one toy manufacturer for the eight consecutive year. 43 of the Top 100 products in the toy market for the full year 2022 were LEGO products – 2 of these in the top 10 – and one LEGO product was sold every second between October to December 2022.*
The company’s Build to Give initiative, in which the LEGO Group donates a product to a child in need every time a LEGO build is shared online using the #BuildToGive, ran once again during the festive period and continued to grow, with two million products donated globally. This brings the total number of donated sets since the campaign started in 2017 to over 6.5 million.
Looking ahead, more details will be revealed over the coming months but 2023 will see new products, characters and storylines launching to excite builders of all ages and provide even more ways to unleash imagination, creativity and fun – whilst keeping the LEGO brick at the heart.
A decade on from the launch of LEGO® Friends, the LEGO Group has re-imagined the Friends Universe, with the introduction of new diverse characters, to enable more children to feel represented during play. This next generation explores the ups and downs of friendship, overcoming challenges, obstacles, and differences to help children celebrate diverse friendships in the modern world.
The new LEGO Friends sets, as well as a new TV series due to air later this month, will feature authentic and diverse characters, including the addition of multiple skin tones, cultures, physical and non-visible disabilities and neurodiversity.
By launching this new generation of mini dolls, the LEGO Group hopes that when kids play in the LEGO® Friends Universe they’ll see more of themselves in the characters and gain a better understanding of others, helping them navigate their own experiences and in turn, become better friends.
Beyond research and insights from kid testing and designers reviewing letters from children, the LEGO® Play Well Study 2022** showed an overwhelming desire for more representation in play and parents (84%) say that play and toys can have a key role in helping children learn about diversity.
In more news for the theme, the LEGO Friends Heartlake Downtown Diner has been selected as one of Toy Fair’s Hero Toy winners for 2023. It features a drive through, outdoor seating, an arcade game, jukebox, food, drinks, money and three minidolls for hours of creative play.
There will be exciting new launches across the LEGO Group’s portfolio of themes. For LEGO City, in addition to fantastic new physical products, there will also be new content launching with action-packed Challenge videos hosted on YouTube, inviting fans to unlock their imaginations and discover the limitless stories and play that await them inside LEGO City.
From the LEGO Technic Ferrari Daytona SP3 through to the DUPLO Family House on Wheels there is something for all ages and interests, with more additions to the LEGO Group’s range of sets aimed at adult builders, including new Botanicals sets, Hokusai’s the Great Wave reimagined for LEGO Art and more, to appeal to a range of different passion points.
Campaigns set to launch in 2023 will continue to champion children’s creativity, and through its partnership with Comic Relief, the LEGO Group will be supporting creativity in schools with fun building challenges designed to get kids thinking about how they can help the world around them.
The company will also be helping Disney to celebrate its 100th anniversary by inviting families to share the wonder of storytelling, imagination and creative play that LEGO Disney has inspired over the last 24 years.
The LEGO Group’s retail offering will continue to expand with a brand-new store set to open at Battersea Power Station this Spring. Last year saw the re-opening of the LEGO Store Leicester Square in August making the UK flagship the largest LEGO store in the world.
Isabel Graham, Head of Marketing, the LEGO Group UK and Ireland, commented “It has been fantastic to see how much LEGO Play continued to be loved by kids and families across the UK in our 90th year. We’ve got even more to look forward to this year with an incredibly strong portfolio of products for builders of all ages, great partnerships and innovative campaigns and I can’t wait to reveal more over the coming weeks and months.”
The LEGO Group remains committed to making a positive social and environmental impact through play and building a more sustainable future for children. The brand has started switching out single-use plastic bags for paper-based bags in its sets and continues to focus on developing more sustainable materials and circular design principles for core products, including making over 150 LEGO elements from bio-polyethylene, a plant-based plastic derived from sustainably sourced sugarcane.
