The inspiration for the Barbie doll came when Ruth Handler, the wife of one of the cofounders of Mattel, watched her daughter playing with paper dolls.
She noticed that she often gave them adult roles.
Realizing that there might be an opportunity in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband, Elliot, who didn’t embrace the idea at first. Neither did Mattel’s other directors.
While traveling in Europe, Ruth Handler discovered a German adult-figured toy doll. It was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them, brought them back to the United States and had an engineer rework the design of the doll. She named it Barbie, after her daughter.
The new doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959, which is recognized as Barbie’s official birthday.
Barbie became an icon, even immortalized by Pop artist Andy Warhol, but by the 2000s, the doll was beginning to lose ground to new competitors. Little girls rushed to snap up Bratz dolls, which were targeted at the hipper, young girl buyer.
These dolls had a fresh, multicultural style, big eyes and full lips. In contrast, Barbie seemed frumpy and outdated. In 2001, Bratz dolls slowly began to eat up Barbie’s market share and even outsold Barbie in the UK.
The Barbie brand’s initial reaction lacked distinctiveness by straying from Barbie’s core brand and focusing on making it more like Bratz. In an attempt to position Barbie as more “edgy”, Mattel toyed with the core essence of its brand promise.
PR stunts were made to amplify Barbie brand awareness in 2004, such as Barbie dumping Ken before Valentine’s Day.
Despite the efforts, Barbie sales fell as the brand struggled through a midlife crisis and lost its cool factor after 40 years. In 2008, Mattel brought in a single strong leader, Richard Dickson, as the general manager of Barbie brand.
He recognized the reasons for the brand failure. Barbie was in 17 shades of pink and the brand used six logos, which presented a major brand inconsistency.
He knew that he needed to bring the Barbie brand back to its original core meaning, and mandated a mind shift.
The Barbie supporting team took the brand too seriously. They needed to celebrate Barbie and have fun!
Barbie Reborn
Dickson, formulated a more unique and publicity-generating tie-in that was still in line with Barbie’s core essence.
He built Barbie a new pad on Malibu beach with the help of top designer Jonathan Adler. He partnered Barbie with New York Fashion Week, where designers including Vera Wang, Betsey Johnson, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Carmen Marc Valvo and Marchesa, all created special looks for everyone’s favorite fashion icon. Barbie was hobnobbing with a very cool crowd, and the buzz was everywhere.
Barbie brand’s turnaround was based on the understanding of these factors; many friends kept the brand popular. Barbie as always had no shortage of personalities, character and friends who themselves appeal to different careers, types of adventure and pop culture.
Secondly, Barbie learned from failure. Not all efforts to rehabilitate Barbie’s brand were successful, such as the website BarbieGirls.com and the Barbie flagship store in Shanghai which closed.
Third, Social Media is valuable. Barbie, a beautiful young woman around town, of course is very social and Social Media savvy. She has a blog and is on Facebook and Twitter, too.
Barbie not only tweets about discounts and promotions but she tweets about her romances and adventures. She is indeed not merely a product, but she is a personality.
All in all, it is very important to note that “telling the Barbie Story” is a strong building strategy for the brand itself. Barbie has generated unique stories for three generations of doll lovers; in addition, there is the streamlining of branded assets, colors, logo and licensing agreements, creating new pop culture and multicultural products, strategically partnering with brands in entertainment, technology and fashion.
Last but not least, there was the reduced use of traditional media for alternative awareness and branding methods, such as product placements, publicity and events.
Of course, as the story of Barbie’s turnaround attests, a big part of bouncing back is redefining what matters to your brand.
Mario Khoe is a senior consultant at DM IDHOLLAND and Daniel Surya is chairman for Southeast Asia.
