Word: mattel
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Barbie may not be everyone's favorite companion--detractors love to hate her plastic perfection--but the fashion doll with the impossible figure has long been the most popular girl at Mattel. The world's No. 1 toymaker, whose products range from Fisher-Price infant and preschool toys to Disney-licensed characters, gets more than one-third of its nearly $4 billion in sales from the 11 1/2-in.-tall mannequin. Now Barbie, who at age 37 has become the best-selling girls' brand ever, is poised to strut into, and perhaps change forever, the male-dominated world of multimedia software...
This month, after almost a year of buildup, Mattel is rolling out a line of seven interactive products led by three Barbie programs. Analyst John Taylor of Arcadia Investment expects Barbie to be among the top software entertainment programs this Christmas. Unlike such shoot-'em-up, beat-'em-up boy toys as Doom and Mortal Kombat, the Barbie titles are notably pacific and based on creative play. "The demand will be many times higher than Mattel thinks it will be," predicts Gary Jacobson, a senior vice president at the brokerage Jefferies & Co., who has followed Mattel for a decade...
...showing for investors, "30-year-old women were having a great time making doll clothes," says an amused analyst who was there. Also part of the rollout are a moviemaking kit called Barbie Storymaker ($29.99) and Barbie Print 'n Play ($29.99), which produces cards and stationery. For the boys, Mattel's new offering is a computer mouse in the guise of a Hot Wheels car, complete with flashing lights and revving engine...
...Barbie's corporate mom, Mattel president Jill Barad, 45, the line represents the first test of her stewardship of the company. In January, Barad will become one of just four women to head a Fortune 1000 company when she succeeds ceo John Amerman, who is retiring. It was Barad, a onetime cosmetics marketer and knowledgeable about the whims of fashion, who rehabilitated Barbie's image in the 1980s, recasting her into a hip toy and a global franchise for the company...
Other companies have made more substantive changes, developing new products or modifying old ones. Hallmark now markets a "Mahogany" line of greeting cards that features black characters and sayings. And even though it enjoyed good sales with a black version of its Barbie doll, Mattel introduced Shani, whose broad facial features and slightly fuller hips more accurately reflect the way that many African Americans look...