Toy Tuesday: Barbie in the News - For Better or Worse

As always, Mattel and its Barbie product line are in the news, and as always, there’s a mix of positive and negative spin.

One of the very first product lines I ever worked on was The Barbie School Collection for Mattel Canada. It was a huge success at the time, and represented a real breakthrough in the “back to school” aisle with high quality TV-advertised product.

Barbie School Collection (Mattel Canada)

It’s good to see that Mattel Canada continues to run innovative promotions for Barbie, including their Barbie Academy that will be held next week in Toronto, featuring interactive stations that allow girls to "try on" different professions represented in the line including a surfer, veterinarian, race car driver, dentist, rock star and ballerina.

Barbie Academy (Mattel Canada, 2010)

Meanwhile, Business Week writes this month about Mattel’s foray into online sales direct to consumers, lauding the company for protecting its brand in an era where powerful retailers pose a rising threat with exclusive and private label products.

On the negative side, Baltimore’s ABC2 News presents a confusing report entitled “Black Barbie Sold For Less Than White Barbie”, in which they confuse a marked down black Teresa doll at an undisclosed Wal-Mart store with a full priced white Barbie doll. (For those who don’t know,Teresa is one of Barbie’s friends, and never sells as well as Barbie herself). The report outlines issues of “overcoming decades of racial and economic subordination”. It’s unfortunate that a marked down slow selling doll in one store causes this type of debate.