Word: multimedia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...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 and video games...
Barad is exploring ways to create multimedia toys for other company brands, including Polly Pocket, Cabbage Patch and See 'N Say. "This is only the beginning," she says in a glass-walled office that sports towering early versions of Barbie and her plastic paramour Ken. Barad vows Mattel will be a leader in interactive playthings...
Barad, the mother of two teenage boys, regards multimedia games as the gateway to computer literacy and views the mostly untapped girls' market with missionary zeal. "It's sad," she says, "that girls start out with an equal interest in computers, but then we lose them at six years old. My boys are online probably eight hours a day. But my goddaughters, and other girls with whom I am familiar, have never had software that is as intriguing to them as it has been for boys." Females account for about 20% of the $4.9 billion global market for games...
Rivals such as Girl Games and Her Interactive, two new developers of multimedia titles for girls, are cheering Barad on. "Mattel can do some great things to expand that market for all of us," says Mauricio Polack, director of sales and marketing for Her Interactive, which last year unveiled a CD-ROM called McKenzie & Co. that is based on high school life. "Mattel is riding on our coattails to a certain extent," Polack says, "and then we'll ride on Mattel...
Also eyeing the latest Mattel products are such multimedia giants as Microsoft and Broderbund. Philips Media, a unit of the Dutch electronics behemoth, has already launched a disc fashioned after The Baby-Sitters Club, a popular book series aimed largely at girls...