WUNRN
USA - More Dads Buy
the Toys, So Barbie, & Stores, Get Makeovers
The
Mega Bloks Barbie Build ’n Style line, construction sets that are marketed to
girls, will be available next week.
The
Lego Friends line, introduced in January, has exceeded sales expectations. It
includes the Olivia’s House playset.
For the first time in Barbie’s more than
50-year history, Mattel
is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the
marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are
being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as
boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on.
It’s a combination that not only has Barbie
building luxury mansions — they are pink, of course — but Lego promoting a line
of pastel construction toys called Friends that is an early Christmas season
hit. The Mega Bloks Barbie Build ’n Style line, available next week, has both
girls — and their fathers — in mind.
“Once it’s in the home, dads would very much
be able to join in this play that otherwise they might feel is not their
territory,” said Dr. Maureen O’Brien, a psychologist who consulted on the new
Barbie set.
Consumer surveys show that men are
increasingly making the buying decisions for families, reflecting the growth in
two-income households and those in which the women work and the men stay home.
One-fifth of fathers with preschool-age children and working wives said they
were the primary caretaker in 2010, according to the latest
Census Bureau data. And 37.6 percent of working wives earned
more than their husbands in 2011, up from 30.7 percent 10 years
earlier.
“Kids are going to grow up with dads that
give them baths and drive them to soccer and are cutting up oranges for team
snacks,” said Liz Ross, president for North America of BPN, part of the IPG
Mediabrands holding company, which recently completed a study on male
consumers. “What will go away, albeit slowly, is the image or the perception of
the befuddled dad.”
The change is having consequences beyond
toys. Consumer products have traditionally been marketed to appeal to women,
and stores have been designed for women’s sensibilities. Now, some brands and
stores are catering directly to male decision-makers. Sears is reorganizing
stores to put tools next to work wear, for instance, based on men’s
preferences. Procter & Gamble is working on men’s grooming aisles at top
retailers, a nod to the fact that women are no longer choosing shampoos or
shaving creams for their husbands. With the selling point that it helps girls
develop spatial reasoning, the Barbie set, a joint effort of Mattel and the toy
company Mega Bloks, is also meant to pique fathers’ interest.
“Dad is a bigger influencer in terms of toy
purchases over all, and this sets up well for that, because the construction
category is something Dad grew up with and definitely has strong feelings and
emotions about,” said Vic Bertrand, chief innovation officer of Mega Brands,
Mega Bloks’ parent company.
Construction sets for girls are a speedy
growth category, thanks to Lego’s introduction of its Friends line in January.
Despite criticism that those sets were sexist
— themes include a beauty shop and a fashion studio — Lego’s chief executive
said in August that the company sold twice as many of the sets in the first
half of the year as it had expected, and retailers like Amazon and Target have
named them hot holiday toys.
Anne Marie Kehoe, vice president of toys for
Walmart
Research
shows that playing with blocks, puzzles and construction toys helps
children with spatial development, said Dr. Susan C. Levine, chairwoman of the
psychology department at the
She said that a set aimed at girls could be
beneficial, if only because it might increase girls’ likelihood of
participating in construction activities.
Dr. O’Brien, the consultant on the new Barbie
set, said adults had traditionally been “the limiting factor” in why girls have
not played with those toys as often.
Recently, she said, there has been a shift in
attitudes, as parents study research on development and spatial play. “For this
particular product, one of the advantages is you can appeal to both moms and
dads,” she said of the construction set.
During her research, Dr. O’Brien said, she
watched a grandfather jump in to explain building principles to his
granddaughter, who was playing with the Barbie. Still, the construction set is
not exactly dump trucks and dirt. It remains “unapologetically all girl,” said
Stephanie Cota, senior vice president of global marketing for Barbie, girls’
brands and games at Mattel.
The Mega Bloks building pieces are pink
(Pantone 219, the signature Barbie color), and the construction choices are
scenes like a fashion boutique, a mansion and an ice cream cart. Each set comes
with a small Barbie figure that can be snapped into the scene.
Mattel, the world’s largest toy maker, still
leans heavily on Barbie, one of its most popular and longest-running
franchises. However, pressure to
update Barbie has been high — Mattel has introduced Barbies with video cameras and digital cameras
in recent years.
Yet sales of
Barbie in North America through September fell 1 percent, even as
sales of Mattel’s other girl brands, like Disney Princess dolls, rose 44
percent. Mega Brands makes just a fraction of what its larger rival Lego does,
and had revenues of about $376 million last year.
The Barbie brand, which tends to raise feminists’
ire for its overly sexualized dolls, not to mention the 1992 version saying “Math class is
tough,” has already taken some high-arched steps toward gender
equality. A computer-engineer
Barbie was introduced two years ago, for instance, with the support
of the Society of Women Engineers.
This time, though, the introduction appears
to be a response more to market changes than to critics.
Girls “don’t necessarily care about, ‘That’s
a boy toy; that’s not for me,’ ” said Ms. Cota of Mattel. “Now, more so
than ever, girls are looking at what’s fun, what they like.”