Ole Kirk Christiansen, who started his business in Billund in Denmark in 1932, produced wooden toys and furniture. The business was not very profitable and he struggled through the first 30 years. In 1934, he began to focus on toys, and changed the company’s name to LEGO. It’s a contraction of “leg godt” which is the Danish word meaning “play well”.
The company grew into other Nordic countries in the 1960s. The company also invented smaller bricks that were ideal for children with small hands and named it DUPLO in honor of the Latin word duplex (two-fold). This enabled children of all ages to build more detailed models.
In the 1970s, Lego began to add new features that made its products stand out from other brands. They introduced different faces to the minifigures. This made the figures more real and capable of communicating various emotions and facial expressions. The Lego Group also added wheels to its bricks, opening the possibility of designing vehicles as well as other machines that move.
The next major step was to introduce themes – systems within systems which allowed users to create a specific world or scenario. This allowed the company to increase its brand’s recognition and helped them attract an audience that was younger. The company also increased production by opening factories in South Korea and Malaysia.
https://lego-x.com/2019/10/03/lego-and-a-leading-position-of-vdr/