Wise Ideas

Blame It On Barbie

It's hell sharing a birthday with a legendary superstar - especially one that doesn't appear to have aged in 50 years.  No, really....she hasn't aged in 50 years!

If you haven't heard by now, Barbie, the impossibly slender doll with freakish feet and bizarre bust and waist measurements, turns 50 years old this week.  And although our birthdays are one month apart - it's still hard not to compare myself with this inconoclastic piece of plastic.

The Barbie-turns-50 celebration got off to a fabulous start last week in New York during Fashion Week, when 50 top designers including Tommy Hilfiger, Diane von Furstenburg, Kenneth Cole, Anna Shui and Baby Phat dressed blond ponytailed models up in clothes created for specifically for the doll, and pranced them out on the catwalk to Aqua's "I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world, Life in plastic, it's fantastic."

The effect, shall we say, was really a little unsettling, as was the audience commentary.   "She's the first Botox bitch," America's Next Top Model judge J. Alexander tells E!Online News. "I think she looks absolutely great. [In fashion], she's proof that you can make everything look great 50 years later."

This is what we real women have to compete with?!  

Given that, as Mattel claims, 90 percent of all girls between the ages of 3 and 10 currently own a Barbie, and God know how many of us through the years had at least one Barbie -- that's a lot of image influencing on female minds and bodies.

It's no wonder that back in 1997, a San Francisco Examiner writer coined the term "Barbie Syndrome," which is defined by Wikipedia as "a term used to loosely describe the desire to have a physical appearance and lifestyle representative of the famous Barbie doll."

Barbie Syndrome most offer refers to young girls.  But since she's been around for 50 years now, there's no telling how much psychic damage Barbie has left in her wake.  And it's not just Barbie's eternally youthful skin and figure, but her out-of-this-world "accomplishments" as well.  108 careers (from doctor, to vet to presidential candidate), 50 pets, and a 43-year long on-again-off-again relationship with one man - Ken.

That's one hard doll to live up to. It's no wonder people enjoy messing with Barbie's perfect image by creating their own versions -- a past time being celebrated this week by listeners and readers of NPR's Soapbox blog, under the headline "Public Radio Barbie."

However, if you dig deep into Barbie's bio --- there is one thing all her youth, beauty, and job-getting skills have not brought her -- but which a vast majority of 50 year old women have.

A family. 

Take that, Barbie.  Who's gonna love and take care of you when you get old?  Even if you will never look a day over 23. 

Toys Are Us?

We interrupt this recession to bring you breaking news from New York, where thousands of soldiers have been deployed to the Javitz Center for some kind of disturbance at the 2009 International Toy Fair.....

Did I mention the soldiers are all G.I. Joe's, and that the disturbance was the debut of Electronic Arts' new videogame featuring the classic doll (can you really call Joe a "doll")?  Of course, the G.I. Joe video game will be released in August to coincide with Joe's first starring role in a live-action movie, "The Rise of COBRA."

As E! Online reports, "Usually we get the movie first, then the playthings. But not this year. Thanks to the Transformers sequel and a live-action G.I. Joe coming this summer, Hasbro is cranking out toys based on films inspired by toys (got it?)."

The toy industry could certainly use the kind of buzz a 45-year old action figure (who doesn't look a day over 23) and a summer blockbuster could create.  According to market research and trend analyst The NPD Group, retail sales of toys were down 3 percent last year, generating $21.64 billion.  The toy categories seeing significant swings are building sets and plush toys with increases of 26 and 22 percent, while vehicles, youth electronics and dolls were down 16 percent, 14 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

Meantime, the industry is adapting to tough times by promoting fewer "big wow, big ticket Items" and adding more toys in the under $10 and under $20 range, as Toy Industry Association spokeswoman Adrienne Citrin tells The New Jersey Star Ledger. 

So what were the hot toys at this year's fair?  It depends on who you believe.  The WaPost suggests you "Pawn that Wii, It's Time for a Nice, Cheap Board game," while Forbes reports that "toy makers focused on online play," and The Star Ledger liked what some mom-preneurs had to offer.  You can watch a slide show of Toy Fair hits and misses at Newsday.com.

Regardless, the one toy that got the most attention was modeled after an evil man America hates.  No, not the Joker or some other cartoon character....but rather Ponzi master Bernie Madoff.  The mini-Madoff, which people are encouraged to smash, mangle or abuse in any fashion the owner sees fit, was the unqualified hit of the entire toy fair, as NPR reports.  

The mini-Madoff, which sells for $99.99 -- more than some of his victims were left with -- comes complete with hammer.  Can a Auto Executive and Banking Manager model be far behind?

Marketing Malia & Sasha

Ever since Ty, Inc. came out with its tacky "Marvelous Malia" and "Sweet Sasha" dolls, there's been a storm of discussion about the marketing and crass commercialization of the Obama girls. 

Although toymaker Ty says "it would not be fair to say that they are exact replications of these girls.  They are not," ..... Michelle Obama, through a calm spokesperson, is said to be livid.  I would be too, if my kids were turned into such lame plushies.

That being said, I think it would be safe to say that without the clever marketing of Brand Obama, Malia and Sasha's dad would not be president today.  In fact, when it suited the Obama's to introduce themselves to the greater public as an average American family -- Malia and Sasha were happily trotted out to pose for magazine spreads, attend a 4th of July picnic in Montana and give an "exclusive" family interview to Access Hollywood, and make other key campaign appearances. 

Granted, the Obama girls were helping their father get elected president, not making money for a company unforgivably famous for the Beanie Baby craze.

But there is a line to be drawn - isn't there?

As The Wall Street Journal's The Juggle blog points out, there's a long history regarding the privacy of presidential children.  "As long ago as 1893, baby Ruth Cleveland, the likely inspiration for the candy bar 'Baby Ruth,' drew such a clamor of public affection after moving into the White House with her dad, Grover, that her parents became alarmed and tried to shield her," according to presidential historian and author Doug Wead.  

But in the more modern media age - starting with Caroline and John and most recently with Jenna and Barbara - First Parents have been relatively successful in protecting their offspring from the intense glare.  But in a world where you can pre-order an Obama Chia Pet for $20 bucks on Amazon, (as well as numerous other tasteless products as you can hear on NPR's Talk of the Nation), should we really be surprised that Malia and Sasha are fair game?

An ongoing discussion on Slate's Women's blog called The XX Factor points out that it's impossible for the Obamas to keep their girls popularity in a bottle, but that "the parents would also do well not to release any more private-moment pictures of them with their girls, such as the ones of the girl's first day of school in D.C."

However, WaPost columnist Ruth Marcus is among a group of people who believe there might be an upside.  "If hawking 'Sweet Sasha' and 'Marvelous Malia' encourages children of any hue to want an African American doll, or to admire two African American girls whose father just happens to be president, maybe that's not such a bad trade-off," writes Marcus.

"Maybe the dolls aren't so much a sign of exploitation. Maybe they actually signal progress," speculates The Chicago Tribune's Washington blog, The Swamp.  

In fact, the Sasha and Malia craze has apparently ignited a rush by modeling agencies to find and cast young African American girls to sell a whole host of products.  As New York Magazine reports, agencies "are looking for girls who resemble them,” according to Charlie Winfield, the head booker at FunnyFace Today.  But there's a problem.  "It’s a very specific age and a very specific ethnicity, so there aren’t that many girls that would necessarily fit the bill."

Excuse me?  There's "not that many" 7 and 10 year old model-ready African American girls to chose from?  What planet do they live on?  Have they ever visited ANY urban public schools?   They could find several contenders in my daughter and son's classrooms alone!  As AfterEllen's Sarah Warn sarcastically puts it, "What you really meant to say is, 'Damn, I guess we really should have had more than one black model on our payroll before now!'"

Progress?  Perhaps.  A revealing look at how slow the world of consumer products has been to reflect what America really looks like?  Definitely. 

 

Barbie Wins Cat Fight With Bratz

Dateline L.A.:  Our old friend Barbie, the best-selling doll with impossibly shaped feet and physically improbable "features," has won a knock-out legal punch in its courtroom doll brawl against Bratz. 

As AP reports, "U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson rocked the toy industry with his order that MGA must immediately stop manufacturing Bratz. He allowed MGA to wait until the holiday season ends to remove the toys from store shelves."

You can read more background on the case, in a blog I posted last May called Barbie vs. Bratz.

As you might expect, today's mega-ruling opens the door for countless appeals, as well as countless opportunities for writers to come up with clever doll puns and satiric imagery in their reporting of the story. 

Now that Barbie is queen of the dollhouse again, those pouty-lipped Bratz have a reason to look so - well - pouty. 

A Less-Bloody-and-More-Green Era in Packaging

What Christmas is complete without dad screaming the F-word as he stomps around looking for an ax to free some Bratz dolls from their manufacturer's prison.

We've all been there - whether it's trying to peel the plastic back from and untwist a bunch of tiny My LIttle Pet Shop accessories, or prying open an impenetrable plastic clamshell to get at a pair of high-tech headphones. 

Without fail --- someone ends up getting hurt.  It's a Christmas tradition!  And it apparently even has a name:  wrap rage.  I think the (now legally-challenged) high tech executive Mark Cuban said it best on his blog, after drawing blood while opening a Seagate hard drive from its packaging:  "WHO THE F*** DESIGNED THE PACKAGING ON THIS THING AND WHY DO THEY STILL HAVE A JOB !!!!!"

Well, it seems some manufacturers AND one online superstore are trying to staunch the holiday blood flow with some new packaging ideas that just might become trends.  As CNET reported recently, a packaging company called MeadWestvaco has redesigned the traditional plastic clamshell enclosures in which most high-tech toys are sold. 

According to CNET, the new packaging, called Natralock, "is better for the environment (half the plastic of clamshell); isn't totally impossible to open; and won't put you in danger of slicing yourself."  CNET's Josh Lowensohn even made this nifty little video and posted it on YouTube, demonstrating the "ease" of Natralock packaging - although there was a small struggle as you can see for yourself.

On its website, Natralock claims to be a much greener packaging solution than the old clamshell, because it uses "50-60 percent less plastic on average than clamshells—enabling manufacturers to achieve bolder graphics, reduce production costs and improve the consumer's experience without compromising security, durability or visibility."

Also looking to green his image and reduce wrap rage, is Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, who recently unveiled a multi-year "Frustration-Free Packaging Initiative."  “I shouldn’t have to start each Christmas morning with a needle nose pliers and wire cutters,” Bezos, the father of four little kids, tells the NYTimes.

Starting this month, Amazon is working with some of its major retailers including Mattel, Fisher Price and Microsoft- to ship some of their best-selling products to Amazon in plain, recyclable cardboard boxes, which will in turn be sent to you.  Oh so simple, oh so green...or brown as it were.

I'm willing to bet scores of other companies won't be far behind in finding that shipping sweet spot between anti-theft and anti-consumer packaging. Frankly, I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner - as I wrote in my old blog, The Kitchen Think, more than a year ago in a post I called "Packaging Gone Wild!"

But I must admit, there's a little part of me that's  going to miss that point on Christmas morning when the blood flows and the swearing starts.  That's when I usually creep quietly off to the kitchen to get a calming nip of Christmas cheer. 

I guess I'll have to find another excuse this year - perhaps when the sibling bickering begins.  That's something no-one will ever find a solution to.

Tink Talks! Will Little Girls Listen?

Since my daughter is soooooo old now (8 as of yesterday), she is sooooo over princesses and mermaids, and has graduated to tame teen rock stars and musically-inclined high school students - thanks to the entertainment geniuses at the House of Mouse. 

With Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and more recently Ariel and Jasmine, Disney has the 0 to 5 set covered with princesses.  And with Hannah Montana, Gabriella and Troy, and The Jonas Brothers, they have the tween and young teen set screaming. 

However, there's a a gap of girls that includes my daughter, who are too old for princesses and frankly too young for Disney's teen offerings - which are made instantly uncool to actual teenagers especially if their little brothers or sisters are "into"it.  So what's a company to do?

Enter old friend and Peter Pan sidekick Tinkerbell, the tiny fairy who has been handed the gargantuan task of recapturing the imaginations of little girls aged 6 to 10 looking for a franchise to call their own.  And, after a three year long build-up including the sale of 12 million copies of some 400 fairy books worldwide, Disney is now betting on Tink to deliver the goods.

Tinkerbell's big break-out started in earnest yesterday with the release of its straight-to-DVD/Blu-ray movie, Tinkerbell, the first of four straight-to-DVD movies starring Tink and her fairy friends. "What we found is most compelling for these girls about Disney fairies is that Tinker Bell has friends and she's figuring out who she is and what her talent is and what her place in the world is." Kathy Franklin, a Disney V.P. tells public radio's Marketplace.  "And that's something that 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-year-old girls are going through themselves."

However, the movies are just a pixie-portioned part of an extensive multi-zillion dollar campaign to reintroduce Tink and her fairy friends as a full-fledged franchise open for business.  Last Friday, Tink's virtual online world of Pixie Hollow went live, offering young fairy fans games, stories and of course, memberships for $5.95 per month.  V.P. Franklin tells Marketplace that in just four days, "7 million personalized fairies are already playing together on pixiehollow.com."

Also, just in time for the holidays, come some new Disney fairy bracelets and charms called "Clickables, which somehow link to the online pixie world.  "This is probably our first real effort at this more holistic approach to a franchise that includes a very immersive online experience tied to consumer products, physical goods," Steve Wadsworth, president of Disney Interactive Media Group tells The Canadian Press.  "This is the world where all these things come together."

And I haven't even mentioned the new Pixie Hollow attraction located in Disneyland's "Fantasyland," featuring a "real" life-sized Tinkerbell who little girls can talk to and pose with.  "It's an extension of the mythology that's going to be established in this film," Reed Jones, another Disney creative/exeuctive type tells The Orlando Sentinel.

Even before the movie was released, Tinkerbell was worth an estimated $1 billion this year alone to Disney.  Add in DVD, book, tie-in toys and other merchandise sales, PLUS online revenue for PixieHollow.com, and you can almost see the pixie dust turn to dollars before your very eyes. 

And while it may seem that The House of Mouse is wallowing in money these days (High School Musical 3 cost Disney $17 mil to make, and it raked in $42 mil its opening weekend), if Disney knows anything, it's that its target market eventually ages up and out of all of its product lines...so there always has to be something fresh available to hook new generations.  

This weekend I'll find out if Tinkerbell passes the ultimate product test from my daughter - who got the DVD as a birthday present last night from her brother.  Although she's crazy about High School Musical, it will be interesting to see if Tink can lure her back to an age-appropriate fantasy land filled with fairies.

However, I plan to keep my wallet and credit card hidden, just in case Tink passes the test.

A Charlie Brown-ier Christmas (or should that be "Joe the Plumber?")

Enough about Joe the Plumber.

Let's talk Christmas.  Or Hannukah.  Or Kwanzaa.  Or whatever holiday you happen to celebrate in December.  The point is - I'm pretty certain the upcoming spending season has already crossed your mind as you watch the Dow dive on nearly a daily basis.

And even if you haven't given the holidays much thought yet - you can bet worried retailers have.  New figures out yesterday show that the bottom fell out of retail sales last month.."their longest slump in at least 16 years," according to Bloomberg. 

Numerous stores have already decked the halls and launched the deals they hope will save their bottom line from the Economic Crises Grinch.  It's already been a horrible year, with a number of the nation's most familiar stores in bankruptcy, as you can see on the NBC Nightly News.  And as USA Today reports, because the holiday season brings stores most if not all of their annual profits, it's "likely to be a make-or-break one for many small retailers and those that were struggling before the economy's dramatic slide."

All the trees and tinsel - which are already up in some stores in an attempt to spur spending - can't cover up the panic.  Shoppers will notice less inventory on the shelves and fewer sales people on the floor.  Conversely, stores will undoubtedly be seeing fewer shoppers.

According to USA Today, a recent survey of 1,000 Wal-Mart shoppers found that "39% indicated they will shop earlier and make other changes to help stretch their holiday cash, 39% said they plan to buy less-expensive items, and 35% said they planned to buy gifts for fewer people."

And while this is really a bad time to be selling cars, electronics, and cashmere sweaters ---- it's apparently a great time to be selling toys.  As The Hackensack Record reported recently, "executives from the country's top toy companies were as giddy as kids in a toy store as they gathered for an industry holiday preview in Manhattan, saying they believe they have strong products and a level of consumer demand that is recession-resistant."

So while higher gas prices and lower spending are expected to impact sales this holiday season -- toy bosses believe mom and dad are more likely to buy something for the kids rather than for each other.  Wal-Mart is making that bet, too, by luring parents into stores now by cutting prices on popular toys, as is Toy R Us, which sent me this eFlyer last night.

"Given current conditions, some (shoppers) need to spread out their Christmas shopping over a longer time-frame than they may have last year," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Linda Blakely tells Reuters.  

I feel bad for all the businesses and in turn, all their employees, that probably won't survive much past this holiday season.  It won't be good overall for the economy - and bodes poorly for a recovery in the near-future. 

But let's take a step back from the economic precipice for just a moment, and ask a question:  would it really be such a bad thing to have fewer gifts under the tree this year?  Haven't we all complained over the years how the holidays have grown too materialistic?

The Grinch may steal our Christmas this year, but we can always look to Linus to remind us what the holiday season is really all about in the first place.  And that's even something Joe the Plumber could probably get behind.

Barbie vs. Bratz: A Doll Brawl Lands in Court

The biggest cat fight in corporate history comes to a head (pun intended) in a southern California courtroom today. In one corner, the always well-coiffed, impossibly curvaceous, vivacious Barbie.  In the other corner, the trashy, melon-headed, pouty-lipped, hip-hoppin' Bratz.

And it turns out, this is a family feud.  Because Barbie and her Bratz competitors are cousins.  And the question being decided in a federal courtroom in Riverside, California is whether MGA Entertainment, the maker of Bratz, stole the idea for the hot doll property from Mattel, the maker of Barbie.

There is no question that the two best selling dolls are related, and that Mattel and MGA both played a role in the birth of Bratz.  So - as you can read here on Bloomberg.com, or if you have a subscription, The Wall Street Journal - the whole Barbie versus Bratz trial comes down to copyright. 

Mattel claims that Bratz was dreamed up by designer Carter Bryant while he was on the Mattel payroll back in the late 90's - so it is trying to seize ownership of the line, which racks up $500 million in annual sales and has literally knocked Barbie off toy store shelves for the past decade.

MGA, meantime, disputes Mattel's claim to the doll design, saying that Bryant "didn't believe Mattel would be interested in the characters," and didn't ever show them to his employer.  As a result, and in a separate lawsuit, MGA is accusing Mattel of copying Bratz.

As if your normal-sized head isn't already spinning with jurisprudence nonsense (AKA legal mumbo-jumbo), Mattel last week settled yet another lawsuit it had filed against Mr. Bryant.  Although the terms of that settlement are not being released (Mattel had sought $35 million from Bryant) Mattel lawyers say the deal will bolster their case against MGA.

And before you say "all this nonsense over some dolls," remember we're talking about major ramifications for both companies, not to mention other doll and toy makers.

In seven years, Bratz has grown into a $2 billion franchise, while Barbie has seen her fortunes (if not her bustline) shrink in recent years.  But give the old girl her due.  The doll, created in 1959 (coincidentally the year I was born, too), still produces annual world-wide sales estimated at $1.25 billion.  And although the Barbie versus Bratz doll war is great fun to write about, it's serious business as you can see on this CNBC special report, or this Nightline story. 

Where you stand on the Barbie versus Bratz issue, I believe, is not so much a legal question as it is a generational one.  Take a poll of moms over the age of 35, and I'll bet Barbie would win hands-down, despite her hideously mis-shapen feet.  However, the winner among younger moms - and girls ages 4 to 14 -  would undoubtedly be the hipper, dare I say sluttier, Bratz babes. 

Can Barbies and Bratz live side-by-side in this doll-eat-doll world?  Is there room on store shelves for both the good girls and the bad girls of Toyland?  Why do all products aimed at young girlz these days substitute "z's" for "s's?"

I don't know if a courtroom filled with lawyers can - or even should - answer all those questions.  But they'll be no peace in Doll-ville until Barbie and the Bratz work out their issues.  And probably by that time, there will be a new doll on the block to worry about.