Mattel and Ttoy Recalls

In 2007, Mattel a California based toy company shockingly recalled 19 million toys that had been manufactured in China. Mattel was founded in 1944, and has produced iconic toys such as Barbie and Hot Wheels. The company had a long established trust with their consumers that had been forged from decades of reliability. However, when the company recalled 19 million toys due to health and safety violations, consumer confusion and outrage soared. The public wanted to know how such an established company’s safety regulations could fail, how Mattel was addressing the issue, and whether consumers could trust Mattel to produce reliable toys in the future.

This paper will summarize the ERR articles from the bulleted topics and issues. This paper will also include summaries on toys that may encourage violence and aggression, toys that may promote pro-social behavior, gender stereotyping in toy selection, and cultural stereotyping or, lack of cultural awareness in toys.

The problem surrounding Mattel Inc. is their mismanagement of international subcontractors and vendors and the production of certain toys (the manufacturing process), as well as their inability to adapt their marketing strategy or product to the constantly changing “demographic and socioeconomic trends.” This is supported by Mattel’s legal battle with Carter Bryant and MGA, their forced recall of certain toys that were manufactured overseas, and the increasing rate at which traditional toys are becoming less appealing to today’s young audience. Essentially, Mattel’s mismanagement and oversight lead to violations in terms of ethical and social responsibilities and safety standards.

Q.1 – Briefly describe the dilemma presented in this case study. Who are the key players and what are some of the antecedents that have led to the present problem? Ans. When the best manager, takes certain actions which go against the core values of the company, it becomes really difficult for the management to make a fair judgement. They are stuck in a dilemma of what would be a better judgement. As a leader, it is very important to be fair and impartial to your team members. And so is the dilemma presented in the case, Bob’s Meltdown, Nicholas G. Carr. The key players in this case are1. Annette Innella 2. Robert Dunn 3. Jay Nguyen Annette Innella is the Vice President, Knowledge Management at Concord Machines. She was recently hired by

The biggest environment force affected Mattel recently has been legal and regulatory with the high levels of lead paint found in their die-cast toys in 2007. This issue created a voluntary recall from Mattel for over 2 million toys and created doubt in customers to the quality of their Mattel toys. Mattel responded by immediately implementing a check system to accept paint only from certified suppliers, tightened controls throughout the production process and testing every production run to ensure compliance. Mattel said that it is working in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and other regulatory agencies worldwide. Mattel is also working with retailers worldwide to identify and remove affected products from retail shelves.

Mattel is starting to take a step in the right direction, according to Renae Merle from The Washington Post, “Mattel said it was strengthening its process for preventing the use of lead based paint, it will only permit paint from certified suppliers and require every batch to be tested, company officials said” (Merle 1). 80% of toys in the United States are imported from China, according to Renae Merle, and 65% of those toys are created by Mattel. Although that is a step in the right direction, that still leaves 15% of the toys in the United States at a higher risk of having high traces of lead on them, going undetected. Stores like Toys ‘R’ Us that sell toys sold by companies other than Mattel, should be required to post the percentage of how much lead is in each toy directly next to or near the toy so that parents can be aware of this problem. If parents are not made aware of this problem, it is going to cause more concerns health wise. Michelle Albert, a stay at home mom of two children states that “I feel our country should be more careful about the things we import” (Albert 1). She fears that her children may have been exposed to these toys and has no way of knowing until it may be too late.

Managers and leaders do not welcome crises because they don't realize that problems and crisis if handled with intelligence become an opportunity for the company. The purpose of writing this paper to discuss the case of "Johnson & Johnson" that became a hero in the eyes of public (Rehak, 2002) and gained their market share back with the help of their effective public relations plan. They accomplished this by making good relations with public and by proving how much they were concerned about the safety of their consumers.

I will approach the process of exploring more technologically advanced and interactive toys within the American Girl core brand by pulling a team of people to complete the strategic planning process (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). A strategic plan is a roadmap to grow your business (Lavinsky, 2013). The roadmap will detail what it will take the implement the new technology and interactive product (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). The team will explore the new technologies and understand the current status of interactive toys that the Mattel has had success with and the pain points. This will help the team understand what works and what has not worked. Research and analysis will be performed to understand the new technologically that is available

Toys are artifacts created by humans that come in all shapes, sizes, and form used for entertainment, therapy, or simply to past time. One of the earliest toys was a doll made of stone that was estimated to be four thousand years old. What is really interesting is the fact that archaeologists have found that the majority of human civilization produced toys. Nowadays, toys are mass produced and have become an essential item in the human lifestyle. So much so that these toys have the ability to shape children or adults to act or be a certain way. Companies take advantage of their products and advertising to have customers continually buy their products so that these paying customers can achieve their desires. However, some products actually

Effective communication also must occur in a broader sense, flowing down, across and up the organization. All personnel must receive a clear message from top management that control responsibilities must be taken seriously. They must understand their own role in the internal control system, as well as how individual activities relate to the work of others. They must have a means of communicating significant information upstream. There also needs to be effective communication with external parties, such as customers, suppliers, regulators and shareholders.

ToyWorld, Inc. was founded in 1973 by David Dunton. Before that, he had been employed as production manager by a large manufacturer of plastic toys. Mr. Dunton and his former assistant, Jack McClintock, established Toy World, Inc. with their savings in 1973. Originally a partnership, the firm was incorporated in1974, with Mr. Dunton taking 75% of the capital stock and Mr. McClintock taking 25%. The latter served as production manager, and Mr. Dunton, as president, was responsible for overall direction of the company’s affairs. After a series of illnesses, Mr. Dunton’s health deteriorated, and he was forced

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.

In 2007, the international toy manufacturer, Mattel, Inc. issued several recalls for millions of their products. These recalls were for safety reasons in that testing at the manufacturing sites and special test laboratories showed that millions of their toys were coated with dangerous amounts of lead in the paint. This lead based paint contains a potent neurotoxin that if ingested can cause serious harm to children. Mattel assured the public that the problem would be solved, the recalled products would be collected and replaced, and that the company would never let this type of incident happen again.

     Strong Products and Brands Global Presence High ethical standards High safety standards Highly influential market segment

For example, Mattel said their earnings for the fourth quarter of 1999 would be 70 to 80 cents per share, but instead they reported a loss of $184 million. The declining sales at the Learning Company was the main reason for the loss.