Bratz vs Barbie

In 2001 came the Bratz, a series of dolls aimed at the female aged 3-11 market with instant appeal as a younger, trendier more cartoon like fashion doll. They struck a chord with girls and sold very well gradually outselling even the ageless fashion queen with amazing proportions, Barbie herself.  Of course Mattel had to take action but rather than focus on what the next trend for youngsters might be they issued their own version of a Bratz doll, the My Scene Barbie followed a while later by the Flavas range.  Did they sell? Only mildly and  sales of Barbie dolls overall were negatively affected, the interesting factor in all this is that Mattel seems to be a victim of it's very own marketing strategies.

  For years it had coaxed and brainwashed children into wanting a certain brand so any competitors that might show up are disadvantaged as Mattel's girls were programmed to only want genuine Barbie dolls, friends, fashions and accessories.   The Bratz were the first real opposition Barbie had come across since 1959 and their manufacturers accomplished this by using similar techniques to companies such as Nike, find out what the next craze is likely to be and design your product range accordingly.  Why do the Bratz dolls have so much appeal?  It's fairly simple, they are high school age with clothing designed to copy what teenagers of that age actually wear.  Their shoes can't fall off as instead of changing the shoe you change the whole foot with an ankle clicking mechanism.  They are very cartoonish in an almost anime style with large, beautifully painted heads and feet and small slender bodies, no huge breasts like Barbie either although the guys do have sculpted abs.  So little girls today like Bratz but why don't they buy the similarly designed My Scene and Flavas by Mattel? Again, it is simple they want only genuine Bratz dolls, clothing and accessories not Barbie clones no matter how hard Mattel might try.  You reap what you sow Mattel, how about instead of copying someone else's ideas you get your marketing department to go back to basics and figure out a whole new concept of original Barbie dolls, oh and using the publicity stunt of breaking up Barbie and Ken isn't the way to go, it's actually pretty pathetic in this author's view.