#182: The Captivating Timeline Of Barbie: From Ruth Handler To Rebirth (1959-2023)

Based on the numbers that the Barbie movie has raked in , there's a pretty good chance you've already seen the Barbie movie that's out . So if you have seen that movie and you're interested in my thoughts on the movie , head over to youtubecom slash TheToyCoach . I just released a video all about it so you could check that out .

Today we are going to talk about the history of Barbie , because if you've seen the movie , you know that they have Barbie meeting her creator , ruth Handler . So today we're going to talk about the entire history of Barbie and we will start with the creator , ruth Handler .

By the end of this episode you're going to learn about the rise and fall and then rebirth of Barbie .

And we're going to start from 1959 , when that first idea was created by Ruth Handler , and go on the journey of the doll's initial marketing success , its struggle of representation , the 90s sales slip and then the eventual rebirth that we all are witnessing right now . Today , the creator of Barbie was Ruth Handler .

She was best known for inventing the Barbie doll in 1959 and being the co-founder of Mattel with her husband , elliot . What is said that the idea of Barbie came from ? Ruth watching how her own daughter played with her dolls . She wasn't just nurturing them , she was using the dolls to role play .

That she was different things , and the way that her daughter , barbara , was playing with her dolls inspired her mother , ruth , to come up with a different play pattern for a doll . Eventually , it would become a fashion doll , but the design of the body of that fashion doll was actually inspired by an adult toy .

The Barbie doll design itself has a tiny waist and a large bosom , so that is where that initial design came from . So that's the basis you need to know about where the idea of Barbie came from . Let's talk about Barbie's initial marketing success , how it got started .

When Ruth Handler first created Barbie , she knew the doll would be a success with little girls , but she had a hard time selling her vision to the , at the time , entirely male design team . Now , eventually , ruth was able to persuade them of the doll's potential and Barbie went into development .

The next struggle , however , was figuring out how to market such an adult looking toy . 1950s America was a super conservative place , especially for women . Most women got married directly after high school or college and popular media stressed the importance of having this nuclear family , with mom staying at home to take care of their kids and run the household .

So the idea of Barbie , this independent young woman with a career , no husband it just went directly against many of the expectations for women at the time . Now , additionally , the dolls figure and body shape meant that many people considered her as too grown up and not really age appropriate for kids .

Ruth knew that she would have to come up with a creative way to market the doll if she was really going to sell it . Ruth went on to hire Dr Ernest Ditcher , a psychologist and marketing expert . Ditcher was a controversial figure in the marketing world , but he also got results .

Now , one of his favorite techniques , which he had invented himself , was conducting focus groups to explore how consumers felt about different products For Barbie . Ditcher interviewed 191 girls and 45 mothers . He found that many mothers considered Barbie to be too sexy , but girls loved her . They saw her as someone to look up to .

Now , the point of compromise for mothers and girls was the dolls wardrobe . The mothers were almost as fascinated by the tiny garments , with their attention to detail , the miniature accessories . They were almost as impressed with it as the little girls were . So Ditcher came up with the idea to present Barbie as a teenage fashion model .

This would allow kids to play out the fantasy of a real adult with a career , and it would be a natural explanation for Barbie's expansive wardrobe . And then mothers could use the doll to help girls learn about dressing well and being well groomed .

Now , in this way , ditcher positioned Barbie not as a toy that subverted societal expectations for women , but as a toy that would actually help girls fit in . So Mattel began running TV advertisements for Barbie during the Mickey Mouse Club , starting in the spring of 1959 . And Barbie debuted at Toy Fair in March of the same year .

Now buyers were skeptical about this doll , with most of the buyers leaving the Barbie showroom without placing an order . Sales were slow throughout the spring , prompting Ruth to cut production of the doll . Mattel kept running advertisements and , come the summer , barbie sales began to skyrocket .

So Mattel sold 300,000 dolls the first year and it took three years for production to catch up with all that demand . As the first teen fashion doll Barbie was breaking barriers left and right . Now let's move into the issue of representation and the introduction of black Barbies .

Over the years , the Barbie line had been criticized for its depictions of black dolls and it took a while before they actually would introduce a black doll into their line . Now let's get into the introduction of black Barbies into the Barbie line and what prompted that .

Back in 1965 in LA , what is known now as the Watts Riots , sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion , occurred . So it all started with a traffic stop where an African-American man was pulled over . He failed a sobriety test and , in the process of trying to be arrested , a fight broke out between the cops and him .

Onlookers were involved , fighting with this man and others . There were reports that police kicked a pregnant woman who was present at the scene . Just overall civil unrest followed . In 1965 , los Angeles was rocked by a summer of protests and riots , and that summer of riots is known as the Watts Riots , after the neighborhood where most of the unrest took place .

As a result of the riots and in an effort to rebuild the community , two men , louis Smith and Robert Hall , founded Operation Bootstrap , an organization to help residents of the Watts neighborhood enhance their professional skills and find career opportunities .

And in 1968 , these civil rights activists , louis Smith and Robert Hall , actually added a toy company as a division of their non-profit . It was called Shandana Toys . Now this new company focused on fostering self-love and empathy by creating black toys for black children and others .

Through my research I found a lot about Shandana Toys , so we will have another episode on that . But what's interesting is through that research I found that Mattel provided factory training supplies , industry contracts and capital with , so far , seemingly no strings attached . Haven't done deep dive on this , but seemingly no strings attached .

As a result , shandana Toys had a helping hand to get started While Mattel was working with Smith and Hall to aid them in the building of Shandana Toys . Mattel was also rushing to get a black friend for Barbie to market , considering everything that had gone on . So the deadline for them the goal was 1967's Toy Fair .

But they were unable to finish a doll with authentically African-American features in time At least that's what is reported From what I know in the toy industry . I'm sure that at the time they thought let's just make it a darker doll , that will be enough . And they quickly found out that it wasn't so .

In 1967 , mattel presented the African-American version of Barbie's cousin , and they called her Francie and she had used the same molds and the same hairstyles as the white doll , but just a darker skin and black hair . People weren't feeling that doll as much .

By 1968 , mattel produced Christy , a Barbie-sized friend with a unique sculpted face , curlier hair and a brown skin tone . Christy was followed by the release of Julia in 1969 , a doll based on the character played by Diane Kroll in the TV show of the same name . Both Christy and Julia were successful dolls .

Christy continued to be a part of the Barbie line until around the mid-2000s . Keep note that they weren't called Barbie , they were all her friends , other dolls . So it wasn't until 1980 when the first official doll named Barbie came out . In 1991 , mattel released the marvelous world of Shawnee , a line of African American dolls .

Mattel conducted research to determine the best way to design and market this doll line to accurately represent African American culture and the line initially launched with three characters Asha , shawnee and Nichelle . A fourth character , jamal , was released in 1992 , and the line saw four waves of releases before it was discontinued .

And Mattel also released another line of exclusively black characters Asha the African American collection in 1994 , and that line was discontinued after three dolls . A third line featuring exclusively African American characters was released in 2009 , and that line was available in just the US until 2014 . So let's move on to 2016 .

In 2016 , mattel really went through an overall Barbie rebrand , unveiling Barbies at different heights tall , short . They had different body types , curvy and skinny . They had petite dolls , and the goal was to move away from that doll's signature shape .

The new line also included a much wider range of skin tones darker browns , warmer browns , lighter peach tones and a ton of different hairstyles . Around this same time , mattel did release a Misty Copeland doll , but there were many articles one specifically by the Washington Post that asked why does the Misty Copeland Barbie doll look so white ?

So they still were struggling to get the right skin tone , and Mattel did say that the skin color looks faded in the photos because of lighting , and I don't really totally believe that . So , then , the most recent launch that I would love to put a spotlight on is the inspiring women doll line .

So that doll line started in 2018 to honor historical female role models , and this doll line started with Amelia Earhart . This doll line started with an Amelia Earhart Barbie doll , a Frida Kahlo Barbie doll , a Catherine Johnson Barbie doll .

But in August of 2019 , mattel released a Rosa Parks doll into this line and later we would see a Madame CJ Walker and several other historical women in the inspiring women series , which is really nice because it almost takes on an air of American girl history type doll .

But they are all within a package that says Barbie inspiring women and not being skirted off to an entirely different line name . So that's really beautiful . And I also have to say the face sculpts of these inspiring women dolls are really beautifully accurate . So I do love the Rosa Parks doll in particular .

So now we did just go from kind of the 80s realm of representation for Barbie into the 2000s . But let's go back a little bit and look at the 90s . There was a big drop in sales . That happened . Let's talk about what happened there .

So Barbie was hugely successful until about the mid 90s when sales of the doll began slipping strategies that had been working previously , like adding different styles into the line and colors for the hair and some skin tones . That was no longer working and it wasn't increasing Barbie sales to reach new market .

Instead , they were overproducing product over estimating sales , like in the case of the 1997 happy holidays Barbie , where production was up to $3 million in anticipation of high sales , only for the doll to struggle to sell through and still be on store shelves through 98 . Now , part of Barbie's struggle was the growing disinterest of that target market .

When Barbie was first released , she was marketed toward nine to 12 year olds , but in the 90s she was being played with by girls as young as three who saw Barbie not as an aspirational figure or big sister , but like a mom . The older girls who had been playing with the doll for years were bored , looking for something new .

Technology was big at the time , but also so were edgier role models . In terms of what impact did Barbie's recycle when becoming a new Barbie resilience doll ? Mga's doll-aligned Bratz were diverse , trendy teenagers who reflected what girls were seeing in the media at the time they hit the market in 2001 . Bratz sales quickly began cutting into the sales of Barbie .

Executives at Mattel were completely blindsided by the success of the line , since Barbie had recently celebrated 40 years of being the number one fashion doll in the world . But then things got interesting . In 2002 , mattel received an anonymous letter stating that Bratz dolls were not created by the team at MGA , but by Carter Bryant , a former Mattel employee .

Mattel sued Bryant , claiming he violated a Mattel employment agreement by taking his designs to MGA while still being employed at Mattel . Mattel proceeded to sue MGA for the exclusive rights to the Bratz line and for theft of trade secrets . Of course , mga countersued , claiming design infringement . The lawsuits were combined and the case went before a jury in 2008 .

The case was decided in favor of Mattel and the Mattel was awarded $100 million . The district judge making the final verdict also ordered MGA to be stripped of the rights to Bratz and to cease manufacturing and distribution of the dolls . However , in 2010 , mga appealed the case and the decision was reversed .

At the end , mattel was required to pay MGA $309 million in damages , in addition to attorney's fees and other costs , but that amount was later cut in half by the appeals court Wilde .

So MGA attempted to bring another suit against Mattel , claiming corporate espionage , but it was dismissed in 2018 and the California State Appeals Court denied MGA's appeal to reinstate the case . Okay , let's move on to talk about the resurgence of Barbie today . We've all been aware of Barbie Mania .

If you haven't listened to my previous episode , go listen to it now . I dive into the amazing marketing behind the Barbie movie , but let's just quickly talk about the doll sales . According to Stastiacom , in 2022 , mattel's Barbie brand generated a gross sales of $1.4 billion in the US and that was actually a drop compared to the $1.6 billion sales in 2021 .

Now we all know the 2021 year was really projected by the pandemic . Barbie had a ton of content come out on Netflix in the pandemic which people are attributing to the sales that were happening end of 2020 into 2021 . So that's likely where that $1.6 billion comes from .

According to BusinessInsidercom , that $1.6 billion of gross revenue equates to $86 million from the Barbie family and that equates to $164 being bought every minute I wild . So what are we seeing coming forward from the Barbie movie ? What are we expecting ?

Well , there are already rumors about a Mattel adventure park let's find out what you think about it , baby being built in Arizona . There's actually a live stream where you can watch the park being built . I will add that into the show notes . The toycoachcom forward slash one , eight , two .

The movie just about five days after release , a global phenomenal success generating over 330 million dollars . And this Barbie core movement has been taking over at theaters worldwide and there have been many Barbie conventions taking place that have been promoted more and more .

Right now , the Barbie conventions that I have found are not associated with or sponsored by Mattel , but I could see that changing A Barbie con sponsored by Mattel with some Barbie core attire . So that is all I have to share with you for Barbie history for today . I hope you enjoyed this episode . We dove into the rise and fall of Barbie .

We talked about representation . We talked about representation within the Barbie line . Before I let you go today , I have got to give a shout out to someone who has left a review for this podcast . If you love this podcast and you haven't left a review , what are you waiting for ?

Your reviews are what keeps me motivated to keep coming week after week with these episodes . So if you love these episodes , please give me a wonderful rating and review wherever you're listening to your podcast . So I've got to call out this review left by Liz Renee .

Liz says really appreciate a gel's perspective in the toy game industry , which , like many industries , is an underrepresented industry . As a black woman who is new to the industry , it's so important to hear the perspective of another black woman who's not only thriving but also leading in this space .

I really appreciate the quick summaries at the beginning of each episode that give you a glimpse into what the episode will be about . I also love the tangible action and takeaways at the end of every episode . The entire podcast is so well curated and thoughtfully produced . Thank you , liz . It is I work really hard to do that , so I appreciate that .

So let's talk about today's takeaway , today's action item for the week . I want you to go sign up from a YouTube channel because I did a review of the Barbie movie there . It is a spoiler filled review , so don't watch it until you've watched the Barbie movie .

When you're ready , go to youtubecom , slash the toy coach , look for my most recent video , subscribe to my channel , turn on notifications , watch that video and leave a comment . Let me know what you thought of the Barbie movie , as always . Thank you so much for spending this time with me today .

I know your time is valuable and I know there's a ton of podcasts out there , so it really means the world to me that you tune into this one until next week . I'll see you later , toy people .