 It's an absolute pleasure whenever I talk about this love brand of ours to an audience as exciting as this. So good evening, 90 years, 90 years is a really long time, really long time. It's about time that we see three generations. It's about time that really calls out an entire period of evolution, right? And whenever we deep dive into how have we transformed this humble little brick into this timeless legacy, there are many, many things that come to mind. And if I have to really decode the journey of this brand to you and bring to life how these 90 years really happened, I thought of various formats in my head on what would be the best way of actually bringing the story to you. And then I decided that the best way to do this would be actually to do what we do best at the Lego group, that is tell the children a story. And so here I am to tell you the story, the story of this brand and the people behind it from time to time. What I have also tried to do here is to basically break the story into a few chapters, you know, from my side. And each chapter essentially is actually going to be a little bit of a peek into a decade of sorts, the challenges, the opportunities, the times that were and how the brand really adopted, evolved, faced those adversities and came out as the timeless brand that it is today, right? So to go back 90 years or maybe even before that, where did all of this begin? And if I have to really go back to where it all started, it has to go back to 1916. And in 1916, this is the story of a young 24-year-old boy, a little 24-year-old Danish boy called Oleker Christensen, right? He was living in this town called Belun. It is the house of the brick, a very, very small town in Denmark. And this all started with him buying a little factory, a little factory for about 10,000 Danish Kronje. What did the factory do, you think? Well, it built everything, doors, windows, cabinets, shelves, chests, coffins. And that's what happened for quite a while, till about 1929. And then 1929 struck and the world around Ole started changing. What did happen? Well, 1929 is the time when the world started reshaping because the New York stock market had crashed. It had to actually send the whole world into a dramatic economic collapse after that. And thousands and thousands of companies were shutting down. Inflation was skyrocketing and Ole obviously realized that his entire customer base had started dwindling because people were obviously sticking to basic essentials. And where was the place for all of this? So with a heavy heart, he had to let a lot of his employees go. And when he did let the last employee of his go forever, he actually found an article in one of the Danish magazines. What did the article say? Well, the article actually talked about something very interesting. It said that there is good manufacturing sense or rather good sense in manufacturing utility items. Utility items like stepladders, iron boards, things like that because possibly people were moving from hiring people to doing these jobs themselves. The last item in that list of products that was mentioned was the item that was to change Ole's life forever. It said toys. Very reluctantly so, Ole decided to allocate a little space in his factory to building toys as well. And that's the chapter one of the story, the wooden duck. So this is the mid-1930s that we are talking about. Ole was producing furniture yet and all the other utility items. He was also producing toys, right? Now this is also the time when there was a little tussle between his head and heart. And the child that Ole was in his heart, he decided to give his heart a listen. And what did that mean? It meant that he said that let's focus on producing only one thing, that is toys. A huge punt, one would say, but an exceptionally fateful one because one day this company started by building wooden toys. The wooden duck was the first toy that the factory produced, was going to become the largest toy brand in the world. So this was also the first break in the evolution of Ole Kirk Christensen or the Lego brand, necessity was the mother of invention, right? We move ahead and that takes me to chapter two. Now you know the factory could not be called the Billund Woodworking Factory as it was called earlier. It had to have a fancy name because it was producing only toys. So what do you do when a young guy actually wants a young company to have a different fancy name? Again Ole did this in his very typical style. He actually opened a contest to his employees. And he said, think of a fancy interesting name that denotes what we do. There's a precious prize to it. And the prize to it was something really precious. It was Ole's favorite homemade wine. Who do you think won the contest? It was Ole himself. He actually put together two Danish words, like got as you see them here. And he actually combined that to give the brand its iconic name Lego. It essentially translates in English as play well. And that is the name that we have lived with for years. It was only very recently that we discovered that the name in Latin also has a meaning. Incidentally, the name means I assemble. Such are the interesting stories with the brand. We move on and we see that, you know, we have settled in the 1930s and we are entering the 1940s. Ole's sons have joined the business and are showing active interest. And this chapter three, which is very close to my heart, is a chapter that I will narrate to you in the words of Gottfried Christensen, his third son. So basically Gottfried comes back from office one evening and he says, Dad, it's a great day. Why? It's a great day because we've made a lot of money today. How? We've made a lot of money because we've cut down on some costs. Okay, go on, says the father. He says, you know, today I had an order from the Danish cooperatives for two boxes of ducks. I actually gave them those two boxes today up the station. And how did you save money in this entire process? Well, you know, we typically give our ducks three coats of clear varnish. I decided to give them only two this time. They looked good enough. And I have packed them and given them off. After all, they are for the Danish cooperatives. They wouldn't notice. By the time I picked my head up, my dad was frowning. He said, Gottfried, don't you know this is wrong? You will go back to the station right now, open up those boxes, give those ducks a third coat of varnish, pack them back, go back to the station and deliver them where they have to be delivered. You will not go to bed until this is done and you have no help allocated to doing this. There was no arguing with that anymore and Gottfried had to complete this task at night. That night was the biggest lesson that Gottfried actually learned about what quality means. The next morning when he got up, he actually took a slab of wood. And these were the letters that were printed or rather carved out on that wood and hung on the factory. If you go to any Lego office today, you will find this slab hanging around. These words translate to the core sense of the brand, which means only the best is good enough. And that is the spirit of our brand. When it comes to children, only the best is good enough. That is the next brick in the evolution of the brand as well. That is the obsession with quality that we have and we completely live by it as employees there. Moving on, with an unwavering focus on quality, where could you go? Only up. Even in the middle of what we now know was the Great Depression, this company was growing. Growing and how? And then what can go wrong? Well, in one of the unluckiest incidents in the world that could happen, this factory was hit by a fire. And everything, everything that Ole had was erased and wiped out and destroyed. The most precious thing that actually got destroyed that evening was Ole's spirit to continue this business. And he decided or rather almost decided to abandon this business forever. It was only, I think, a sense of responsibility towards his sons and the 26 employees who were left behind in Billon that kept him going. He got a lot of offers from other companies in Denmark but he decided to stay back in Billon and with a little help from these employees and the family, he decided to rebuild the factory again. What came out was a factory which was obviously more modern than the warehouse that they had. And what did that mean? That meant that they could actually go into mass production. They could also actually use new age materials now, move on from wood to something different, notably plastic. And this, you will see, becomes a very important chapter as we go ahead in the history of the brand. Now not only the destruction of the factory but also this is the time when they were faced with the World War II. Good quality wood had become rare and so what do you do? Ole decided to take yet another punt and he invested hugely into a very expensive then injection for a plastic molding machine. He brought it and installed it into his factory much to the displeasure of his children. Godfrey was once found coating to a newspaper saying you can make very cute little nice things in plastic but then wood is always stronger. So the sons also decided to persuade the father and said plastic is not good enough, we should move out. And these are the famous four words that Ole used to his sons at that point in time to say can't you see, you know, if we were to actually build in plastic, we will be able to move out of Billon and Denmark to the rest of the world. And the globe is where we will be able to make the children happy and bring smiles to their faces. I must say now he was definitely a visionary, not only because, you know, he gave us the brick that we see today but also because decades later another factory actually took fire and that's the time when the sons decided to absolutely abandon the wood business and go back to where their father had shown faith and that is plastic. This is also another brick which actually shows resilience and innovation at times that were changing rapidly. Now, you know the business is doing well, the sons have joined in, they are taking their part, they are moving across the world and this is the time when the sons had started going out to the globe and gathering feedback. They were very keen to listen to customers and kids to understand what is doing well and how could they do better. At one point in time, Godfreyd met one of the retailers who simply said, toys are not that great these days and Godfreyd said, what's wrong? Toys are just great, we are doing very well. He said, yeah, they're doing well, but there is no system. There is no system. These are the words that then kept haunting Godfreyd throughout the night and he said, what do these words essentially mean? The next morning when he got up, it all made sense to him. He said, yes, there is no system and what does that mean actually? He said, you know, kids, imagine and create, but what are we giving them as toy makers? We are giving them ready-made toys. Yes, I love a car and so there is a car for you. Yes, I love a dollhouse and so there is a dollhouse for you and what if I want a horse tomorrow and what if I want a rocket day after? So he said, there has to be a system. Yes, these bricks could be placed together but there was no mechanism to lift it and he thought and he thought and thank God he thought because what he came up with at that point in time is the classic interlocking mechanism, tube mechanism in the bricks that we see today. They click and fit together. Now, you know, a lot of you ask us, is the box that you sell equal to one build? Can I really buy this box for my child? It's so expensive and then he just builds it once and I just display it and it's over. I have to tell you this, that if your father bought a box at whatever age group you are, if your father bought a box many, many years back and if you are the one who's buying it for yourself or your child today, you could just merge all of these boxes together and the bricks will fit and click together as beautifully as they did 90 years back and they will continue to do that 90 years hence from here and that is the system in play. We allow the children to imagine and create whatever it is that they actually imagine in their heads. So they could actually decide to build a rocket today and a plane tomorrow and a car day after and their worlds could also merge together in the same system, that is the system in play. Okay, so that brings me to chapter seven. All is going well. There are bricks and bricks and bricks that are selling, sets are all doing well and then we have been listening to customers and we have been listening to retailers but what about the core consumers, the children? The company had learned its own lessons in saying that we need to listen, we need to see feedback and we need to grow with that. What better way than observe our kids playing and understand their play patterns? This is the time when Lego as a group opened its doors, you know, opens its offices to children. Even today, all the children are invited to our offices to play with the bricks. They were given hordes and hordes of bricks and they are allowed to play. What do we discover? We discover that children are very happy playing with our bricks. But then the manager said that there is a gap, a clear gap between what the child wants and what we have an offer. And what's that gap? You know, we have subtly and slowly moved into the age of self-expression here and the child himself or herself wants to be a part of the play. He wants to be in the castle. He wants to be riding that horse. He wants to be flying that rocket but we don't have a figure to represent the child in there. Very simple problem one thinks and yes, we also thought that there was a simple solution to offer. So that is the birth of the mini figure, a four brick simple figure with movable hands and legs but that changed the fate for us because it was the child who was a part of the play now. He or she could himself or herself see them as part of the play. This mini figure, as mini as it looks to be, changed the fate of the brand once again. We grew about six times our size in the next decade, only owing to this mini figure. And then you say, you know, we have the bricks, we have the sets, children are building, they are in, everything is going just right. What can possibly now go wrong? Times have changed once again and the kids have gone back to screens or rather gone first time to screens and video games and there are fleets and fleets of consultants for the first time at the Lego office, advising them on the fact that the box of bricks is very humble. It's not good enough to keep the children besotted because children are now into Tamagoche's and Nintendo's and whatever. That's the time, there was a knee jerk reaction for the first time by the senior management at the Lego group and they decided to give the consultants a listen. If there are any consultants in the audience, it's no offense intended here. But this is the time when they actually decided to give the consultants a listen and they said, okay, let's make our sets flashier. There was jewelry, there was motors, there were lights, everything that was added to the Lego sets. It was actually no longer the vision that Christensen had started with. It had really become a product that was trying desperately to stay relevant in times that had seemingly changed overnight, right? Sales were plummeting. And this time, in my head, there was no factory fire, but the brand had gone up in smoke. The brand was almost at the verge of filing for bankruptcy. And this is the time when they opened their doors to a new CEO, a 36-year-old man called Yon V Nootstrop, who we very fondly call as JVK in our office. 36-year-old guy who's come in from a consulting background and for the first time outside the Christensen family decides to take over. His strategy and what he has achieved out of that strategy has become one of the biggest lessons in the turnaround of corporate history. It is actually put together in a book called Break by Break. And that book has some of the most essential lessons that are given in business academics today. What was his strategy, you would think? The strategy was simple, go back to basics. And what did that mean? So he simply came back and he said, let's cut the number of pieces that we are developing right now to half. Let's sell off all the Legoland parks, drastic as it may seem, right now, only to focus on what we do best with the audience that we work best with, that is children. He got the design team absolutely focused on understanding what children do, play and how, and said innovate, but innovate profitably. This is the first time when the group invested in homegrown IPs. And that is the birth of Bionicles, which may be new to some of you, but that was also the birth of something new that is collaborations. We actually opened our doors to collaborating with what was trending at that point in time. And that gave birth to one of the things which was our collaboration with Star Wars, riding onto the pop culture. The homegrown IPs and this collaboration itself snapped Lego brand out of bankruptcy and how, is a story to tell. So now things have started looking better. And then wisened and humbled by the lessons that we have learned, we decide not to ignore any of the demographics that matter to us. And one of the demographics that mattered to us and had been royally ignored were the adults. You know, we had a lot of motivated fans who were continuing to build us. They were passionate about building, but we were always focused on the kids. And by this time, from a time perspective, we had also entered the age of community building. So this is the time when the Lego group decided to actually create a platform and bring in all the adult fans together. That platform of the adult fans allowed them to vote for ideas and submit their ideas. Some of those ideas were then picked up by our designers and are some of our best selling products. We fondly call this community the A-Falls, the adult fans of Lego. This is hugely growing across the globe even today, including India. I don't know if some of you sitting in the audience are A-Falls, but this is for all of you who enjoy building that this is the time when the group actually opened its arms to the adult fans as well, riding on to innovation with a different audience altogether. And then, we said, while we stay true to our core of children and role play and storytelling, the way storytelling is happening has got upgraded. Children are now a part of a content revolution. What can we do? And that's the time in 2014 that we decided that time was ripe for us to invest in content. The first time that the Lego group went out and made a movie, the Lego Movie. The budget for this movie was very, very minuscule, but the movie was one of the biggest grossers at the box office that year in 2014. Not only did it change the way the Lego group looked at content, but that was the year where Brand Finance reported that Lego had actually toppled Ferrari to become the most powerful brand in the world. And since then, we've never looked back on content. So chapter 11, figuratively and otherwise, meant the end of that part. And that brings me to the final chapter, chapter 12, which is the chapter that we are living and breathing today. It's a chapter that I lovingly say, a chapter of promise. A promise of keeping children playing with things with an environment that they are growing in. We talk of sustainability today. We talk of energy conservation. We talk of diversity and inclusion. And what does that mean? As I stand here representing my brand today, there are tons and tons of people who are actually working towards getting us sustainable materials to build. You know, replacing the plastic that you see today. We are changing our packaging from plastic to paper. From an inclusion perspective, the minifig that we just saw is no longer the minifigs that you have only seen. You see not only all colors of skin and hair to make it more inclusive, but you also see all sorts of disabilities presented by those minifigs because we want to give each child an equal opportunity to play and adults as well, of course. So that is actually the end of what I wanted to say. And at the end, I just want to conclude by saying that we are not 90 years old. We are obviously 90 years young, and we hope that we can keep all of you young with many, many years of play that we have in us. Thank you.