BIONICLEsector01:Interview with Rebrick

LEGO Fan Media Days:
Interview with LEGO Rebrick

Hi all, and welcome to the first installment of BS01’s LEGO Fan Media Days Interviews! To recap, BS01 General Manager and LEGO User Group Ambassador Dorek visited Billund at the beginning of June 2016 to tour the LEGO factory and to interview people from several franchises. Our first interview is with Mette Hansen, from LEGO’s Rebrick platform! To learn more about Rebrick, visit their site.

Interview

Dorek, BIONICLEsector01: One of the first questions I wanted to ask you was, what was the original idea for the platform? What was the pitch?

Mette Hansen, Rebrick: It was before my time, but it was enabling people to have galleries, for when you browse the net, and you find all these cool MoC’s, so a system where you could collect all of that in one gallery. That was the main intent of the page. And it did that, quite well. But the team realized there are so many other pages that do that, better, really, so that’s the learning from it.

Then what we saw, what made people exited, were the building challenges, and we could see “okay, that’s where something interesting happens”, and that’s where people start to get really engaged, and that’s also the opportunity for us to create the link between the community and the product groups, because we would be able to facilitate that contact, in a sense, so work with the product groups on different cool concepts for contests.

BS01: Giving people a reason to make the creations that you were just hosting before.

MH: Exactly! So we are hopefully able to inspire more building.

BS01: So how has that transition been? Did you come on before or after the new platform?

MH: I came on just before we launched the new concept, so I actually started in October. I’m quite new, still, even though I feel like I’ve been here for a hundred years! [laughs] In a good way, of course, it’s all very fun.

So I came on board then, and we launched the new site in March, so I have a real running of some of the contests.

BS01: Like the LEGO Worlds Contest, the one that just finished?

MH: Yeah! The cool thing about that one, I think, is that the winner gets their creation built into the game.

BS01: I just sat in on an interview with LEGO Worlds (note: BZP’s, in fact! Look for it soon.) and they showed us that, and it’s exciting.

MH: Yeah, it’s cool! And you can really see the skill of the people building digitally. It’s very impressive.

BS01: So you guys accept all kinds of submissions, then? Digital-made, physical, etc.

MH: Yes, we do. It is about building, so it is about using the brick; building physically, using LDD or some other digital tool.

BS01: In LEGO Worlds they told us that the winners for that contest were all between 16 and 19, so a nice TFOL segment. Do you find more people using physical bricks, or digital?

MH: For Rebrick it’s a mix; still mostly physical entries we see. But I think for TFOLs, teenagers, building digitally is quite a thing. So we see that, definitely. And that is a really interesting development.

But I think more traditionally, in the AFOL community, building digitally is a bit more like a means to another process.

BS01: So looking at the mechanics, versus actually getting the experience.

MH: Yes, exactly. I don’t know what it’s like for you, but that’s what I’ve heard a lot of.

BS01: We definitely see a lot of that; people will build stuff they see before it’s out, just to get a sense of what it will be like in the future.

MH: Exactly.

BS01: How do you guys make the decisions on what kind of contests to have? Do the themes reach out to you, or do you reach out to them?

MH: That’s a good question! It’s pretty structured, actually, the way we do it. We have a strict process around it. The product groups will say “We really want to do something with the fan community” and we’ll say “Yes, that’s awesome!” and then we get together with the designers and the marketing team. We’ll talk with them and ask “What do you guys have coming up”, and “what are the new themes, what is the new stuff going on with you guys”.

Then we’ll talk about, based on that, what would be interesting to see the community create. For us, it’s a lot about creating that link between the product groups and the community. So the content that is created, the cool creations, we can actually use that and merge it more with the product groups. So for example, it can be built into a game, or you share it on social channels, or put it online for kids to see. Different ways so we can amplify it a bit more, and inspire even more people.

BS01: How do you access those fans? LEGO Worlds, for instance, is Steam-only, so did you find people building for the competition that didn’t necessarily have the game?

MH: For Worlds specifically, because you had to buy the game, it was very specific for this contest, which makes sense. If the game had been out, everybody been able to access it, it might have been another thing.

I think it was pretty amazing to see the level of the quality of the entries; people really are able to build some amazing stuff in the game, so that’s been cool to see. And I think it’s fun, too, that we can have different contests at the same time, so we can have people inspire each other through different themes and different ways of building.

BS01: Accessing different areas of the fanbase by having them cross over a little bit.

MH: Exactly. I think that’s really, really interesting. We’re early days, so we’re kind of just testing to see what happens, what do people do, but I think it’s fun to see.

Right now we have a Friends contest going on, we have Ninjago, Technic, and MINDSTORMS contests going on, and soon we’ll be launching a BIONICLE contest which we are really excited about.

I’m really excited to see how, just because you’re interested in one thing, you might be inspired to go “Okay, maybe this MINDSTORMS thing could be fun to try out”, and maybe people could inspire each other.

BS01: So you go onto Rebrick to check your own thing, but then see all of these other contests that people are doing.

MH: Yeah, exactly. We’re hoping that will happen. We’ll see!

BS01: So what do you do, specifically, for the platform?

MH: My role, specifically, is to actually work with the product groups and come up with the concepts for contest ideas. It’s a fun job!

BS01: How do you come up with these ideas for the contests? The Ninjago contest, for example, is “The Greatest Villain of All Time”.

MH: That was a dialogue with the Ninjago team, about what they have going on, and what they would like to focus on. So, actually, for the second half of this year, they will have a lot of focus around the “baddest bad guys”.

That’s why we wanted to hype this up in the community for now, as well, so it’s like a pre-hype for that event. But then also, when people look at all the bad guy stuff coming out, we also have some really cool things from Rebrick that they can share, that they can call out in their communication: “look at what this cool fan created”, and “do you agree that he is the baddest bad guy”, so it’s a way to tie into what’s actually going on in different parts.

I think it makes a lot of sense in that way, it’s a bit more than a contest; it’s a building contest, but it also has a purpose. And for me, it was just such a cool way to call out the actual builder, the person who created this, rather than just “here is a LEGO set, thank you for participating”. We’re really trying to make everybody see how cool this entry point is.

BS01: This reminds me of when there used to be contests in the LEGO Magazine, where, at least for BIONICLE specifically, the winning model could possibly appear in the story, but now Rebrick has capitalized on that, where people can have that influence, to help fans engage.

MH: That’s what we’re definitely hoping. In that sense, what I do is trying to come up with cool things that will challenge the community creatively, but also something that makes sense in terms of what the product line has going on. It’s a fun job, and I really like it.

BS01: It seem very exciting!

MH: It is! It’s cool, and fun to do.

BS01: So what are these models here?

MH: So because we had the LEGO Dimensions contest, Customize Your Portal, we did it in the team as well, just for fun. This was Kim [Ellekjær Thomsen]’s entry. I brought this because Rebrick is about people’s own creations, their MoC’s. The lamp is also Kim’s.

BS01: Oh, very cool, I’ll have to mention that to him later.

MH: We do that every month, in the team. We get together, have breakfast, and build something; we do building contests internally.

BS01: It’s an impressive display.

MH: Kim is quite an amazing builder!

BS01: You wouldn’t think that, necessarily; some people are very focused on the digital aspect, so they might not be good at handling the plastic itself. I like that you guys are all good at building.

MH: We really want to be! And you know, especially with some of the guys that travel a lot to the fan conventions and see new trends and cool new techniques.

BS01: They like to know what they’re talking about, in order to bring it back.

MH: Exactly. We really try and make that happen. Part of the team was just in Asia, and they like to build these really round characters, so we all learned to build these round little characters.

BS01: Asian builders, especially, are really good. I’m always in awe of how good they are.

MH: They are crazy good. I went to Hong Kong some months back, and there was this guy who was building, but he had no space to do it, all he had was room for his laptop. So he would build really tall in that space.

BS01: Go up instead of out?

MH: Right, and they always have cool anime designs... it was crazy.

BS01: Do you guys ever post some of your own models on Rebrick for inspiration?

MH: No, we leave it to the fans. Sometimes we’ll have a video to explain the contest, but we don’t really put our own stuff on there.

BS01: How do you decide what gets featured on the home page? Is it randomly generated, vote based or do you guys select it?

MH: It’s actually chronological! We would like to work a bit more intelligently with what it shows. Right now it’s what you see is what you get, and we have eleven contests in total to work with this year.

BS01: Eleven? Wow! You’ve already done how many in the past few months?

MH: Ninjago, Friends, Worlds, Dimensions, and Speed Champions, so five.

BS01: Very impressive, so six more to go.

MH: Yes, and I’m looking forward to those. Soon we’ll launch a Mindstorms one, and a Technic one, and then the BIONICLE one coming up.

BS01: I’m very excited for that one.

MH: Yes, I’m so excited too!

And we have Creator coming up, which will be fun, as well as Minecraft.

BS01: Minecraft is huge these days.

MH: Yes, so that will be exciting to see what people build for.

If you take a look at this video, this is some of the stop motion animation we got for the Speed Champion contest that just ended. We’re sending the winner to the 24 hour race in Le Mans. We asked them to build their “dream race” in stop motion. There were some amazing entries; here you can see a Pirate take off! The quality is just crazy good.

<videoflash>9LTUJjszFJU|300|250</videoflash>

BS01: These are great! Did you see, perhaps, fewer entries in this contest? Because stop-motion is a very time-consuming medium.

MH: Definitely fewer entries for stop motion; we had 38 for this one, which I think is quite good, especially when you see how amazing they all are.

There’s a Brick Films Festival in Germany tomorrow [6/4], in Stuttgart. They’re doing it proper, they want it to be like the Oscars, and we’re going there and announcing the winner. So that’s another way we try to make it more than a building contest, it has even more purpose.

BS01: So where did the title “Rebrick” come from?

MH: That is such a good question… I wish I knew! [laughs] I could guess that it came from when it was link-sharing, it was another way to describe that. But we decided to keep it!

BS01: I remember when LEGO Ideas used to be Cuusoo, in beta, but you guys kept Rebrick.

MH: Yeah, we kept the name, that was also decided when we changed platforms.

But it’s pretty fun to work with. Sometimes you get a bit overwhelmed. Because I really love all the stuff the fans build, so I promote it everywhere in LEGO: “The fans are so amazing, we need to do more with them!” Then every time we launch something it’s also a bit like “oh my god, what if the community won’t like it?”, and you panic a bit, but every time it’s just so overwhelming how interested people are, and what they build.

BS01: That makes me feel good too, seeing people step up and create these amazing things.

MH: I can’t even believe it, and that’s really fun to work with.

We also work a lot with the prizes, trying to make those different than, say, just a set. Like a trip somewhere, for example the Le Mans trip, as well as the full assortment of Speed Champions sets. And for Worlds, the winner got built into the game, so those are the kind of mechanics we’ll also see a bit more in the contests coming up.

BS01: So how do you open up the dialogue for those prizes? Sending someone to Le Mans, for instance.

MH: Yeah, so that’s really in the dialogue we have with the design team and the marketing team. We talk about “what is your focus”, and of course, it’s a budget thing; what is the scale? Of course, if we’re asking someone to do brick films, that’s a lot of work, so we need the prize to really be up there.

So that’s what we talk about; depending on how big they want to make it, then we come up with prizes that match what we ask people to do. So for the Ninjago contest, the prize is a trip to LEGOLand Billund for two from anywhere in the world, and they get to stay in the LEGOLand Hotel in the Ninjago Room, and get some special behind-the-scenes Ninjago stuff. And there’s also a session in the Innovation House over here with the Ninjago designer, where they’ll talk about the bad guys, and how they designed them. When we are able to offer something different, we really try and capitalize on that, make use of that.

BS01: Has there ever been anything you wanted to do but weren’t able to do, necessarily?

MH: Sometimes we want to blast the fans EVERYWHERE, but can’t. If there’s a partner involved, for instance, it can take time, or they might disagree, or they want to do something else. I don’t have a specific example, but you have LEGO Worlds, they work with Warner Brothers; this was a positive case where they were all about doing things with the community, but in a case like that where we would want something, that could be a challenge to convince someone else we need to do this, especially when it’s about content getting into a product.

BS01: Right, because they are the ones doing the work of the coding and designing.

MH: Exactly, they’re the ones implementing it.

But in the case of the LEGO Movie, some years back, we did the same with the old Rebrick, we had a stop-motion contest.

BS01: I remember seeing an advertisement for that.

MH: Yeah! The winners were featured in the actual movie. There’s a scene where Emmet is looking at some screens, and he goes “Look at all these things people built!” and you see the creations. There is also a scene where President Business is looking at screens showing fan created stop-motion; that was a really cool call-out, I think, to the fans. You wouldn’t really notice that it was fan-made. Things like that are very cool to try and scope with the different product teams; if that’s the benchmark, getting something into the LEGO Movie, then what can we figure out here?

So for the BIONICLE one we did, some years back, the Battle For The Gold Mask; that one had a cool prize. Did you participate in that one?

BS01: No, I wish! Didn’t have the time. There was a lot of excitement around that one.

MH: Yeah, a lot of enthusiasm.

BS01: That was back when it was Rebrick, the website, and not incorporated into the LEGO site, so would you be able do something like that again?

MH: How do you mean?

BS01: In that case, they reached out to some fan sites; would you not consider doing that again?

MH: No, we’d love to something like that! For us, because we have eleven contests going on, and we’re essentially two people on Rebrick, it’s also a bit about managing, coordinating, figuring out how to get it all done.

It’s still the early days with the new site, and we’re building it up, so at this time there’s a lot going on. But we would love to do something like that in the future. Also, things like fan events, we would love to get out there more with ReBrick. For now, we’re establishing it, making sure it works, and then we can start doing a little bit more.

BS01: Do you ever see entries you wish could have made it further, or won more?

MH: That’s the tricky part of having it be contests; somebody has to win. And sometimes you can’t really compare, since they’re all so good! That’s why we have to work a lot with the judging criteria to make sure; the judges are all the design team and the product team.

BS01: Is it always just the design/product teams judging, or do you guys have any input?

MH: Sometimes we advise; it’s not our decision, since it’s their theme. But sometimes we do advise, like to show them “oh, you have to consider this one!” But essentially, it is their decision. So we work a lot with the criteria we put up, whether we judge on the building technique, or LEGO humor, or whatever it is that we’re doing, so that we do have some guidelines to judge from, because otherwise there are always too many good entries.

BS01: And they can be different for each theme?

MH: Definitely! But the cool thing is that we can still celebrate the people who didn’t win by posting them, calling them out.

BS01: Well, I very much like what you’ve done with the platform since the relaunch, it’s very focused.

MH: Thank you! Have you entered any contests since?

BS01: Not yet, but when that BIONICLE one comes up, I definitely will!

MH: Excellent.

BS01: Thank you very much for your time.

MH: You’re welcome, thank you! It was very nice meeting you.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And that's a wrap on our first interview! We'll be releasing more in the coming weeks. Huge thanks to LEGO, of course, and Mette Hansen for their time.

-Dorek