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GREAT MOMENTS IN KIDDIE MARKETING:

Barbie Vs. the Misfits

Introduced in 1958 as "anatomically perfect," Barbie was modeled after a German doll/cartoon prostitute named Lilli. Unlike other dolls at the time, Barbie dolls resembled full-grown women (as opposed to babies, dwarves, or animals), enabling young girls to act out their fantasies of the adult world: shopping, buying clothes, wearing makeup and jewelry.

From the start, clothes and accessories were central to Barbie's success. While the doll retailed for $3 in the mid-sixties (a $6 version with various wigs was also available), the complete wardrobe cost 45 times as much: $136. More profitable than the dolls themselves, fashion accessories encouraged year-round spending to constantly update Barbie's image. The ageless doll (was she sixteen? thirty?) was the blank slate--and the clothes and accessories, the signifiers of choice--upon which girls could project themselves and situations they imagined. As Barbie's 1987 slogan put it, "Girls can be anything" (as long as they had the right clothes).

After twenty years as a top seller, Barbie's sales started to wane in the mid-eighties, largely due to the lack of a comprehensive promotional strategy. Her creators, Ruth and Elliot Handler of Mattel, didn't want to specify Barbie's personality, because this might limit the imagination of girls who play with the dolls. Without a comprehensive TV marketing plan, her own show, and hundreds of coordinated licensing arrangements, Barbie was losing market share, mostly to a new character doll named Jem.

Jem--Barbie's first serious rival in a market flooded with imitators--was launched in 1986, complete with a television show, books, posters, T-shirts, and tape recorders. Every detail related to her character, every bit of narrative, was carefully calculated, targeted, screened, and analyzed. After extensive market research and planning, Jem was born: crusader for orphaned girls by day, rock star by night. As Jerrica Benton, she ran the Starlight Home for Girls (inherited from her father) and communicated with a special computer via her earring . . . which somehow would transform Jerrica and her friends into Jem and the Holograms, pink rock band, forever to battle rival rockers the Misfits and their greedy punk rock manager (I'm not making this up). A typical commercial for Jem went like this:

Chorus: (over animation from the series) Jem.

Female voice: Battling the Misfits, battling, battling the Misfits.

Girl 1: (watching Gem) Your clothes are outrageous.

Girl 2: Truly outrageous.

Misfits: We are the Misfits, we are better. Our music is better, and we are taking it all. Taking it, taking it, taking it all.

Girl 2: It's Jem and the Holograms.

Girl 1: The Misfits are better.

Girl 2: We'll let our fans decide.

Female Voice: Flash 'n' sizzle Jem, the Holograms, and the Misfits, each sold separately with cassette.

Chorus: Jem!

The Mattel camp responded to all this by fighting fire with fire. Come 1987, Barbie had both a rock band and a TV show.

Apparently, Mattel's fantasies were more effective at moving dolls than little girls' fantasies: Barbie sales went back up and Jem bit the dust.

Not that Mattel's financial woes were limited to Barbie's sales. Ruth Handler pleaded no contest and was found guilty in 1978 for conspiracy, mail fraud, and falsifying statements to the SEC. Handler received a 41-year suspended sentence, $57,000 suspended fine, and 2,500-hour community service. Upon leaving Mattel, she quit the toy industry for good and started a new business: manufacturing artificial breasts for cancer victims. Her new product, Nearly Me, became "the Cadillac of the business," generating several million dollars a year. --CM (Sources: Out of the Garden; Toyland; Fashion and Merchandising Fads)