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Lego wants to sell more than colorful plastic building bricks. It wants to offer an experience of playful learning.

Of course, the problem is that telling a child a toy is educational is “the kiss of death,” so the company has to balance wanting to be fun and cool to kids with letting adults know the toys are effective learning tools, said Steve Hawco, vice president of direct marketing and e-commerce for Lego Shop at Home.

To that end, the company has launched ventures like The Lego Club, which debuted in 1987. The club has over 1 million registered members, with a target age of 5 to 14, and a median age of 9-1/2. Members receive a club magazine every two months, said Hawco, speaking in March at the New England Mail Order Association's spring conference in Cambridge, MA.

Lego has found that club members buy an average of 10 Lego sets per year, three times more than the typical boy. Seventy-six percent of members never throw the magazine away, and 76% show it to parents, 63% to siblings, and 67% to friends. And 56% of the members play with Lego every day.

Company Web site Lego.com targets both parents and children. The site gets 4.3 million visitors per month, who spend about 20 to 45 minutes per session.

The company has been in the catalog business since 1986. Hawco said 44% of kids who get the catalog at home spend 30 minutes with it; 84% use it as a “wish book” and 54% use it as a retail guide.

Seventy-three percent of direct customers use multiple channels for their Lego holiday purchases, he said, noting that annual purchases typically are higher from multichannel buyers. Those who only buy Lego at retail spend $83 a year on average. Direct-only buyers spend $147; retail patrons and those who use only one direct channel spend $251 and those who buy at Lego.com or by phone $266. But customers who use all three channels shell out a whopping $472.

One interesting problem for Lego has been how to translate the detailed retail packages into catalog spreads. Hawco said the company used focus groups online to test these spreads. One e-mail request to shoppers for opinions on a Harry Potter set yielded a 35% participation within 24 hours.

Of course, the results weren't exactly conclusive. Adults liked a plain white backdrop where they could clearly see the play sets, while kids preferred a more highly designed, illustrated background that had a more “Hogwarts” feel to it.

Lego ended up doing a variety of backdrops in an attempt to satisfy both audiences. Since most people who buy from Lego's online store are adults, a clearer layout is used, along with a 360-degree spin feature that allows users to see the sets from every angle.

The company also looks to consumers for help on product design. In 1997, shortly before the release of a Lego “robot design system” called Mindstorm, hackers broke into the system and made changes that actually improved the program's design. While the company initially was dismayed that the hackers had posted the revamped program online for anyone to see, it quickly realized that customers had a lot to contribute.

Contests are run regularly that entice customers to help design play sets or choose which sets might be created and released. A “Star Wars” Death Star set, slated to be released later this year, is one example of a consumer-chosen set.

The company also is planning to go one step further later this year with LegoFactory.com, where users will be able to create models online and then buy the bricks to make the creation themselves.

The family-owned private company, founded in 1932 in Denmark, currently does direct marketing in 19 countries around the world.

Lego comes from “Leg Godt,” Danish for “play well.” In Latin, it means “to put together.” According to the company, some 300 million children have played with Lego over the years, and kids spend 5 billion hours annually with Lego. And, believe it or not, there are 52 Lego bricks for every person on earth.