Analysis of a Marketing News Story

Analysis of a Marketing News Story

Section 1: Introduction

On Jan. 28, 2016, Mattel unveiled Project Dawn, the secret revamping of Barbie. Now known as "The Evolution of Barbie,” the toy company has introduced a new set of dolls in hopes of broadening the diversity of one of the world's most iconic dolls.

‘My whole philosophy of Barbie was that, through the doll, the girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.’ - Ruth Handler, Barbie Creator

Section 2: Product life cycle

A product progresses through a sequence of stages from development, introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.

The 57 years old, Barbie is currently at the Maturity stage. The global sales were dropping (3% in 2012, another 6% in 2013 and 16% in 2014) and the doll was slowly losing its appeal to girls and parents. Due to:

Criticism - Barbie has faced years of criticism on the unrealistic body dimensions of the original Barbie and the effects that these impossible standards pose for young girls, despite undergoing several modifications over the years.

Competition – Electronic toys, tablets, and other dolls. In 2014, by the introduction of Lego Friends (line of toys designed to teach girls to build), boost Lego above Mattel as the biggest toy company in the world. Mattel also lost the Disney Princess business to Hasbro. Hasbro’s Elsa toys (Elsa from the film “Frozen”) dethroned Barbie as the most popular girl’s toy.

To rejuvenate the product (Barbie), for two years a design team worked secretly on reinventing Barbie in hopes of making her a better representation of the modern world inhabited by young women. The project was named “Project Dawn”.

Kim Culmone, head of design asked the team ‘If you could design Barbie today, how would you make her a reflection of the times?’

Section 3: Product Repositioning

This process involves the change of target market and how the product differentiated from its...