INTERVIEW Lego Korea urges cultural shift toward play so kids can build future

Soren Morup, marketing head of Lego Korea, plays with the brand's signature head brick at the company's office in Seoul, April 16. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

Young Koreans, despite all their potential, are under significant academic pressure and lack space to develop their creativity, a critical skill for future industries, according to the head of Lego Korea’s marketing division.

Soren Morup, a Danish national, is working to empower Korean children and young people to be creative in his role as marketing director for the 93-year-old company. With three children of his own, he believes his job is not just to sell products, but also to find opportunities to raise awareness among parents and children of the value of play in building skills.

Morup’s concern about Korea's educational atmosphere, with its overwhelming academic pressures, is based on research into the emotional toll of Korea's school system. Lego Group’s Play Well Study 2024 revealed that Korean children consistently ranked near the bottom of the happiness index in OECD countries — a pattern that has persisted since the 2010s.

According to the report, while an average of 91 percent of respondents from OECD countries believed that play contributes to family wellbeing and child development, only 76 percent of Koreans did. The report also revealed that while 20 percent of families worldwide said they never play together, the figure was over 50 percent in Korea.

“Globally, we’ve seen that in countries where academic pressure is lower and play is more integrated into education and family life, children often display higher levels of creative confidence, collaboration skills and emotional resilience,” Morup said in an interview with The Korea Times on April 16.

“To empower the next generation of Korean children, we need to reframe how we view play and learning. Not as separate, but as one. Play is one of the most effective ways for children to learn and develop.”

Lego-certified professional Kim Sung-wan's BTS concert diorama is exhibited at COEX in Seoul in April 2023. Courtesy of Lego Korea

Living in Seoul, Morup understands the reality of how most Korean children — some beginning as young as preschool — spend hours studying at private institutions outside regular school hours. He questions whether their demanding schedules excessively limit their opportunities for unstructured play and creative exploration.

“Despite a decline in the overall student population in Korea, spending on private education here reached a record 29 trillion won ($20.4 billion) last year, with over 80 percent of the entire students participating,” he said. He cited a joint statistic report by the Ministry of Education and the Korean Educational Development Institute which said there were 5.13 million elementary, middle and high school students last year, a 1.5 percent decline from previous year. This means more money is being spent on fewer kids.

“This illustrates the deep-rooted societal anxiety around academic success and falling behind. The result is a generation caught in a dilemma between two competing forces: the desire to cultivate creativity, and the cultural drive toward perfection and academic excellence," he said.

"While the global trend shows a growing appreciation for embracing imperfection as a path to building creative confidence, fewer than 10 percent of parents in Korea and Japan support this view. Children in these countries also report the lowest levels of happiness with their own creative confidence, indicating that the pressure to always perform flawlessly may be undermining their creativity.”

Morup was emphatic that play is more important than ever, especially for future industries. He cited research showing that play helps children develop essential “21st century skills” like creativity, collaboration and problem solving.

“With around 60 percent of today’s kindergarteners expected to work in jobs that don’t yet exist, play isn’t just a way to pass time. It’s a powerful tool for shaping a generation that can imagine and build a better tomorrow,” he said.

Pop-ups, online challenges

Morup initiates creativity-boosting events online and offline to offer opportunities for more young people to experience Lego bricks. He favors public venues frequented by families, like shopping malls and sports stadiums, and encourages them to dip their hands into pools of bricks provided by the company.

Morup speaks during an interview with The Korea Times inside Lego Korea's office in Seoul, April 16. Behind him is a Lego sculpture built by Lego-certified professional Kim Seung-yoo. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

During Morup's tenure in Korea, he's seen the number of certified Lego stores increase to 23, up from a mere seven in 2020. In addition, the company has hosted pop-up events this year featuring large-scale sculptures in the shape of flowers made with the Lego Botanicals series and race cars from Lego's partnership with Formula 1. At Lotte World Mall, a Lego Botanicals pop-up in February drew 35,000 visitors in just two weeks.

In the run-up to Children’s Day on May 5, the company is introducing Lego building zones at baseball stadiums across the country, drawing on its partnership with the LG Twins baseball team. Another strategic date for the company is the United Nations’ International Day of Play on June 11, launched last year to recognize that 160 million children worldwide are working instead of playing or learning, underlying the very reason Lego exists.

“This is all about bringing play to Korean kids,” Morup said. “There are all these important skills that play unlocks. We really think that’s super important in a society that’s very perfection-driven and has high academic pressure. I think play has to be a counterweight to that.”

Morup said the first thing he does after waking up these days is check the company’s official Instagram to see works made by young Lego creators without any instruction as part of a contest for Children's Day. Whether they've made satellites, animals, cars, dinosaurs or robots, a seemingly limitless range of creations are submitted to the company through Instagram. Winners will be featured in a special presentation by the company on the statutory holiday.

“It’s a showcase for us showing what kids do and their creativity to the Korean population. We could put in products we want to sell, but we really want to promote creativity of Korean kids instead,” Morup said.

Behind making bricks

Established by Ole Kirk Kristiansen in Billund in 1932 and now sold in more than 120 countries, Lego Group has manufacturing plants in Denmark, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Mexico, China and most recently in Vietnam, where operation began earlier this month. A seventh factory is scheduled for completion in the United States in 2027.

Lego Group's new tire parts are made with 30 percent recycled materials, mixing old fishing nets with recycled engine oil. Courtesy of Lego Korea

While the Americas and Europe are the largest markets, the Asia-Pacific region is one of the fastest-growing. According to Morup, Korea is a “very dynamic and trend-leading market filled with cultural inspiration and a digitally integrated society that influences how children play.” Out of 23 Lego-certified professionals worldwide who build unique brick sculptures for public exhibition in regional markets, two are from Korea.

“Korean consumers provide valuable feedback that helps shape our portfolio and marketing strategies. Lego Ideas BTS Dynamite set and pop-up events here are great reflections of this,” Morup said. “Lego Korea’s pop-up and offline events have been recognized by our global headquarters as standout cases. They are now used as benchmarks in other markets.”

Lego manufactures bricks that are eco-friendly, durable and precise, with compatibility across different products. The bricks are primarily acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic and use advanced injection molding technology, with a margin of error of just 0.005 millimeters.

The group has also invested in using sustainable materials in manufacturing. It uses bio-polyethylene made of sugarcane, artificial marble (arMABS) from recycled kitchen worktops and recycled styrene ethylene butylene styrene (rSEBS) from old fishing nets and recycled engine oil to create Lego tires.

Who is Soren Morup?

Morup has spent his entire career at Lego, starting in 2010 as a marketing manager at Lego headquarters before moving up to become marketing director in 2018. In 2019, he became the brand director at Lego China, then in 2022 became the head of product and new business. In 2023, he was appointed head of marketing at Lego Korea.

He earned his bachelor's at Aarhus University in Denmark in business administration, later receiving his master's in innovation management at the same university.