LEGO LAB and the Fake Door Marketing initiatives

Launching a new product or service is increasingly something very risky. LEGO LAB is the platform with which the LEGO Group tests new ideas directly with consumers. It is a platform where there is space to change, adapt and improve the products to be created before they are actually launched (Fake Door Marketing).

It is an innovative and different approach from the one used so far to pass new ideas and new projects from the Creative Play Lab, an internal department that manages focus groups and the passage for the latter of new sets, products and services. LEGO LAB "leaves" the laboratories and goes directly to consumers with moc up of the products that the LEGO Group wants or would like to launch but which require a field test before going into production (or not).

The Fake Doors known so far

Let's see together the known cases of Fake Door marketing campaigns implemented by LEGO LAB.

Official LEGO LED lighting kits

A first example of "field tests" was done during the last edition of LEGO WORLD held in Copenhagen last February (just in time before COVID-19 arrived to turn our lives upside down). Inside the LEGO Store set up within the event, sets called LEGO Night Mode - Light Kit were displayed on the shelves of the store. In practice, these were specific LED lighting kits for certain sets:

LEGO Ideas # 21318 Treehouse



LEGO Creator Expert # 10260 Downtown Diner


LEGO Harry Potter # 71043 Hogwarts Castle



LEGO Creator Expert # 10265 Ford Mustang



(Photo Credit: brickset.com & The LEGO Group) When the news of official LEGO lighting kits would hit the market, it spread on social networks and the net in general, the LEGO Group was due intervene with an official statement in which it was explained that a LEGO LAB initiative that put on the shelves what was nothing but empty boxes (moc ups) put on display to evaluate the reactions of visitors and possible buyers, while the illuminated sets places on display were made with third-party LED kits.

LEGO Technic Hybrid Set - LEGO Mindstorm

The LEGO LAB teaser with an elusive LEGO set object dates back to just a few weeks ago Technic based on the Porsche 911 RSR of the previous set # 42096, which by implementing elements and functionalities of the new LEGO Mindstorm Robot Inventor # 51515 platform, would have allowed enthusiasts to buy a classic LEGO Technic vehicle but with innovative functions and aligned with current real car standards:

advanced front viewer and sensor for autonomous driving ultrasonic sensor for object detection and distance measurement LEGO Smart Hub with accelerometer on 3 axes and gyroscope also on 3 axes LED front lights with programmable lighting

(Photo credit: brickfinder.net & stonewars.de) Read also: New (and fake) LEGO MINDSTORMS Porsche set revealed by LEGO LAB for… benchmark!

Configurable and customizable LEGO City set

The launch by LEGO LAB of the most recent of the Fake Door campaigns: the possibility of buying a LEGO City set of the which one to choose the minifigures, pets, buildings and buildings that will be included and on the front of whose packaging you can have your own name (or that of the person to whom it will be given).

Oh yes , because even when an initiative allows you to finalize the purchase of the product (or service) of which you want to "test" the satisfaction, even though the latter may be test and experimental, if and when conducted on a limited sample of customers - as specifically limiting access to the initiative to residents of Denmark - it is still a Fake Door marketing initiative.

Read also: A LEGO City set that is only ours? Thanks to LEGO LAB, it's possible in Denmark!