LEGO Senior Capstone

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A full-semester senior capstone project developing a strategic revenue growth recommendation for LEGO — applying Blue Ocean Strategy, competitive analysis, and value innovation frameworks to identify a new market opportunity and build a board-ready business case.

The RCSC capstone challenged teams to select a real company, conduct a rigorous strategic analysis, and develop a defensible revenue growth recommendation — structured as a full business case and presented to faculty and peers. Most teams defaulted to apparel and beauty brands. We chose LEGO.

Why LEGO

LEGO represented something different from the typical RCSC company pool. It had evolved from a children's toy into a brand that spans theme parks, licensing, digital platforms, and adult collector sets — yet still had clearly underserved segments and untapped emotional territory. We were genuinely excited about the brand, which made the strategic work sharper.

The project unfolded across four structured deliverables — each building on the last, from situational analysis through to a final executive-style presentation. I contributed across all phases, with particular ownership of strategic analysis and presentation content.

1 Situational analysis

Assessed LEGO's current position using Porter's Five Forces, PESTLE, and competitive benchmarking. Identified where LEGO was strong, where it was exposed, and where the market had untapped white space.

2 Buyer utility mapping & value innovation

Mapped the full LEGO buyer experience across six utility levers to identify pain points and opportunity gaps — then used those findings to generate a value innovation concept: LEGO RePlay+, a circular economy platform addressing the disposal and organization pain points in the product lifecycle.

3 Blue Ocean strategy development

Evaluated three strategic directions using the ERRC framework before converging on "LEGO Moments" — repositioning the brand around emotional memory creation and nostalgia, targeting an adult audience and fostering intergenerational connection.

4 Executive presentation

Delivered a 10–12 minute business case to faculty — covering company overview, current situation, strategic rationale, target market validation, expected outcomes, and implementation plan. Designed and presented two core slides.

The recommended strategy shifted LEGO's value proposition from functional-experiential (building as an activity) to emotional-nostalgic (building as a way to create shared memories and intergenerational connection). Rather than competing harder in the children's toy market, we proposed creating new demand among adults and families through collector value, nostalgia, and relationship-fostering products.

The core insight

LEGO already had deep emotional resonance with adults who grew up with the brand. The opportunity wasn't to market harder — it was to deliberately design for that emotional dimension: sets built around memory, connection, and nostalgia, with a brand positioning that treated adult customers as the primary audience, not an afterthought.

The ERRC framework guided the value curve redesign:

Eliminate

Pure child-age appeal as primary focus

Educational positioning for adult lines

Reduce

Price (slightly, for entry points)

Product innovation pace in core adult lines

Raise

Collector value — significantly

Digital integration (moderately)

Brand loyalty initiatives

Create

Nostalgia-driven product lines

Relationship fostering experiences

Memory creation as core brand pillar

Blue Ocean Strategy- Primary

Core strategic lens — creating uncontested market space rather than competing in the crowded toy market.

ERRC Grid- Primary

Four Actions Framework used to redesign LEGO's value curve across eliminate, reduce, raise, and create dimensions.

Porter's Five Forces Analysis

Assessed competitive intensity, buyer power, supplier dynamics, and threat of substitutes in the toy and entertainment industry.

Buyer Utility Map Analysis

Mapped pain points across the six-stage buyer experience cycle to surface the value innovation opportunity.

Ansoff Matrix Analysis

Evaluated market penetration, development, product development, and diversification paths before selecting Blue Ocean.

SWOT / TOWS Analysis

Matched internal strengths and weaknesses against external opportunities and threats to sharpen strategic direction.

The best strategy doesn't win in a presentation room — the best-communicated strategy does. Designing our slides around the audience's perspective, not our analysis, made the recommendation land differently than a data dump would have.

Choosing an unconventional company sharpened our thinking. Because we couldn't rely on the obvious frameworks everyone applies to apparel brands, we were pushed to dig into what actually made LEGO unique — and that's where the most interesting strategic territory was.

Running a team across a full semester taught me how to delegate without losing quality. Trusting teammates with their sections while maintaining coherence across deliverables was harder than doing it myself — and more valuable.

Emotional value is a legitimate strategic lever. The LEGO Moments strategy worked because it was grounded in something real — people's attachment to the brand — not just a financial model. Human-centered insight makes strategy stronger.