CHIEF MARKETER: When researching this book, were there any “aha!” revelations by marketers that really seemed to be a simple solution?
Warner: The Home Depot’s emphasis on “gender inclusivity” struck me as a very smart solution to a tough question for both the company as well other companies struggling to create stores that don’t turn off either gender. … John Costello, the company’s executive vice president of merchandising and marketing, said it best: “I think too many companies are locked into a definition of the nuclear family where men’s and women’s roles are strictly defined. The reality is that women are now equal partners, be it in home renovation or anywhere inside the house. As a retailer that serves these people, we have to understand these new roles for women and how the evolving demographic structure of society is affecting them.”
CHIEF MARKETER: Did any of the brands or agencies you interviewed for the book agree they had made a mistake by taking female consumers for granted?
Warner: Kodak and one of its marketing agencies, Eleven, realized that the digital camera industry had made a grave error when it dismissed women as an important consumer of the products. As the Kodak case study shows, for decades women had been the majority consumers of mass-market photography. Women often were the people taking photos, asking for photos to be taken, putting photos in albums, and taking film to be developed. When digital cameras hit the market, most marketers dubbed them a high-tech gadget, which meant to them that the cameras would be a male-dominated product. They were wrong. … Moreover, high-tech was no longer dominated by men. In younger generations, women and men are equally engaged in technology. Take a look at many 15-year-old girls’ backpacks and you’ll find an iPod, a camera phone, and several other gadgets that the consumer electronics industry would have once considered only for males. When Kodak decided that it would take its new camera, the EasyShare, and focus its marketing on what women wanted in digital cameras—notably an easy way to get photos out of the camera—they were putting women back in control of “memory making” for their families.
CHIEF MARKETER: In your book, you talk about how MGA‘s Bratz were able to topple Mattel‘s Barbie because its marketing team did not buy into preconceived ideas of women. Does this show forward thinking by MGA, backward thinking by Mattel, or a combination of the two? And could Barbie once again be a top-rated brand?
Warner: It’s a combination of the two. MGA was willing to really push the boundaries on what made a doll fun and interesting to young girls. They focused on what the girls wanted, not what they thought girls wanted, and even more important, they didn’t listen to what their moms wanted. Bratz often don’t appeal to the moms of the girls who adore these dolls. They are quirky looking. and yes, admittedly, somewhat sexualized. But then so is Barbie. But MGA’s team took its cues from girls who said they wanted dolls that were more diverse, more fun to dress up—meaning better clothes and fashions that mimicked what girls saw in music videos. What’s intriguing about Bratz is that they mix fantasy and reality in interesting ways. No one looking at the Bratz dolls’ faces would say they looked like any real person. They are styled more from the manga, or Japanese cartoon tradition, than on a real person. But their bodies are more realistic. They are shorter and less busty and more hippy than Barbie.
As for Mattel, the company has suffered by not paying attention to the changing tastes of young girls. This is a problem many companies that have focused on girls and women for so many decades often face, I believe. They are so certain of what they believe about girls and women—a belief often driven by having enormous success focusing on those beliefs and ideas—that it clouds their ability to be creative and bring out great new products. Mattel also has a far harder task than MGA. Bratz was all-new; while failure was certainly possible, the company started with a clean slate. Mattel couldn’t mess too much with Barbie because of her iconic status and her immense importance to the company’s bottom line. These two problems have made it difficult for Barbie to fight back against Bratz. Mattel has tried to mimic Bratz with the introduction of new products. But bringing Barbie back will take more than me-too marketing. Mattel has upset its executive organization and put the marketer behind the renaissance of Fisher-Price in charge of Barbie and several other Mattel brands. It’s much too early to tell what he will do for Barbie. But one move that might help is to stop thinking the company knows what young girls want in dolls and instead find out what they want and how dolls even apply in a world that is so vastly different than the 1950s when Barbie was introduced.
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