Mattel : The Ultimate Barbie Dream House

Due to outsourcing to other developing countries, the toy industry faced many hardships. The products that are made in developing countries that had substandard quality control were recalled many times due to the safety reasons. Mattel too faced a stiff pressure from the government and consumers for the products that were not safe and stable which are made in manufacturing facilities in China. Recently, Mattel recalled several of its products because they were not safe for consumers. Recalling millions of products, not only reduced the total revenues of the company, as well as it hurt the company’s image at the same time. Mattel had been always trusted by its consumers for making providing its consumers high-quality products and stable products.

In New York on March 9, 1959, Mattel introduced the Barbie doll to America. The thin, teenage fashion model that has a perfect slender nose, big eyes, a valumptuious bust, a narrow midsection, and curvy hips. It is estimated that over a billion Barbie dolls have been sold worldwide in over 150 countries. Barbie is one of the first toys to have a marketing strategy based extensively on television advertising, which has been widely copied by other toys. Barbie has also appeared in a series of animated films such as Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3. Barbie’s petite figure, perfectly arched eyebrows, and plastic smile has become the desired American image that many teenage

Barbie was introduced to the public in 1959 by Mattel, and swiftly established the place in thousands of households. Barbie generated huge sales, dominating the place in the market. Within one year of her founding, Mattel had sold 300, 000 dolls and with the sales now reaching up to 3 Barbie dolls being sold every second worldwide. The creator, Ruth Handler came up with the idea when she saw her daughter abandoning her baby dolls and playing with a paper cut out adult doll instead. So she created Barbie based on what the kids appealed to at the time. Ruth discovered that little girls were interested in growing up, hence they preferred playing with adult-figured dolls rather than baby dolls. So in 1959, barbie adopted the look of a typical blonde

4. As I mentioned above Mattel needs to determine if they want to have their products produced by producers in China or producers in the United States. They need to investigate into this problem and see which producer has the lowest recall rate and which producers seem to produce the highest quality products. They should re-evaluate the design of their product to see if there are any flaws involved with the overall design that are causing products to be harmful to children. Mattel should also do some research about international countries’ economies, unemployment rates, and how high the demand for toys is before selling their products internationally.

Early in the 1960s, Mattel had made over $100 million in sales, due largely to Barbie (Woo). The company was based in Hawthorne, and annually made out new versions of Barbie as well as a huge wardrobe of outfits and accessories. Soon enough Barbie grew an exponentially amount of friends and family. Ken, named after the Handler's son, invented in 1961; Midge in 1963; Skipper in 1965; and African American doll Christie, Barbie's first ethnic friend, in 1969. The first black Barbie came much later, in 1981. In the 1970’s The National Organization for Women and other feminists targeted Barbie, arguing that the doll promoted unreachable expectations for young girls. If Barbie was 5 foot 6 instead of 11 1/ 2 inches tall, she would be the “perfect woman”. An academic expert once calculated that a woman's possibility of being shaped like Barbie was less than 1 in 100,000.

Mattel, the largest toy company based on revenues, is the manufacturer of Barbie, Hot Wheels, Matchbox cars and board games. Barbie dolls (Mattel’s flagship brand) were introduced in 1959. With these dolls attracting 7 to 12 year old girls, different varieties of Barbie dolls were released into the toy market. Mattel dominated the toy market till the late 1990s. But in 2001, when MGM’s Bratz dolls were introduced, the realistic look of these dolls attracted girls and they started abandoning Barbie dolls. Now Barbie faces stiff competition not only from Bratz but from Mattel’s own American Girl. Between 2001 and 2004, Barbie sales fell by 27.5% due to stiff competition from Bratz. MGM

Izzy (latter change to Elliot) and Ruth Handler were husband and wife that complemented each other's skills when it came to business. Elliot was the dreamer, who I have often refer to in business as the Oracle or someone that can see things that other can not. Ruth, by contrast, had a business mind and is what I like to call the General. They had two kids named Barb and Ken. Together Elliot and Ruth started a toy company they called Mattel. Elliot's first product inspiration was that of a plastic ukulele, which was closely followed by a toy piano. Since they were short of capital, Ruth and Elliot would attend toy fairs where store buyers would go to sell their new toy ideas. Even though they had successful products, the Handler's lost money since they were relatively inexperienced in manufacturing and distribution. They underestimated their costs, which significantly ate into their margins. Even though the musical toys sold over 20 million units, there was no margin that the company could use to grow.

The main reason that Barbie gained so much popularity and is still popular today was because her main purpose and her conception were to fill the void of having a role-playing toy. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the girls had only baby dolls and paper dolls to role-play with. With the new age of television in many households, Mattel’s aggressive marketing on television, contributed to making Barbie a household name. Some other reasons for Barbie’s success, was because Barbie was marketed with different careers, clothes, accessories and companions over the years. In 1998, Happy Holiday’s Barbie Doll was one of the first dolls to be sold as a collector doll. Mattel has new holiday dolls that come out each year. Now Barbie has evolved into a way for mother’s and daughter’s to bond, by the passing down of older dolls and being able to collect them. Barbie has become

Mattel was the world’s largest toy manufacturer with revenue over $5 billion. It had been doing business in China for 25 years. China was Mattel’s most important manufacturing country. 65% of Mattel’s toys were manufactured in China. It owned 5 factories in China and had a network of contract manufacturers for the remainder of production. In August and September, 2007, Mattel recalled for three times globally 21 million problematic toys that were made in China for the reason of containing excess level of lead. The toys recall issue in addition to the publicity of media drew public attention to the global toys inspection system and the products quality of ‘Made in China’, resulting in a trust

On March 1959 during the American International Toy Fair, Barbie with a demure sidelong glance entered the world stage for the first time. Unlike the earlier traditional toys, Barbie in her high heels and black and white striped swimsuit seemed ready for an upscale pool party, and in the end, she revolutionized both the toy industry and society’s culture by representing the changing society as more women joined the workforce after World War II. As a result, today when any typical American woman reflects back at her childhood besides perhaps crayons, the Barbie Dolls have to be in the top list since it became an integral childhood partner. For most innocent American female children, the Barbie doll is more

An alternative strategy is for Mattel to expand into the technology market and add-on/re-innovate their existing product lines. Mattel has made many of the same products since it was established, with the exception of picture frames and doll furniture, which were short lived products. Barbie has changed a little bit, but other than that, the products have remained unaltered. In order to have a competitive advantage, Mattel needs to grow with the market. As of

Others felt that they should consider Indonesia as a way to take advantage of low labor costs and very attractive exchange rates. Mattel currently operated a plant in Indonesia that produced Barbie® dolls. Montalto had to decide whether Mattel should go forward with the new China plant, build a plant in Malaysia or Indonesia, expand one of the existing facilities, or outsource the surplus die-cast volume through VOA. Company Background Based in California, Mattel, Inc designed, manufactured, and marketed a broad variety of toy products. The company’s core product lines included Barbie fashion dolls, Hot Wheels die- cast toy vehicles, Cabbage Patch Kids, Fisher-Price preschool toys, and Disney toys. Most of these toys were made overseas, primarily in southeast Asia. Mattel had wholly owned manufacturing facilities in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, and Italy. Mattel was founded in 1944 by Elliot and Ruth Handler. Neither Elliot nor Ruth had much business experience or capital, but they both had dreams. The post World War II demographics of a huge baby boom plus a virtually toyless marketplace provided a unique opportunity to gain a place in a growing toy market. Mattel’s first products, simple picture frames and doll house furniture, met with mixed success. The first really big hit was a music box. By partnering with another toy inventor, they developed a music box that could be

Barbies have stretched across the globe and Mattel has factories in China, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Mexico. Another negative effect Barbie has is the factories in China, Indonesia, and Malaysia are said to have bad working conditions such as, underpaying workers, unsanitary conditions, inadequate safety training, and unlawfully long hours.

For opportunities, Barbie is a worldwide brand. So there is an opportunity for the company to use that reputation to increase its market share.

Clearly  Mattel  did  not  have  sufficiently  tight  quality  control   procedures  in  its  supply  chain  to  compensate  for  the  extra   risks  of  outsourcing  to  relatively  new  Chinese   subcontractors.  Clearly  there  were  design  flaws  in  the  toys   with  the  magnets  that  could  come  loose.   But  Mattel  deserves  praise  for  now  stepping  up  to  its   responsibilities  as  the  leading  brand  in  the  toy  industry.   -­‐What  has  Mattel  done!  :