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Mattel, the toymaker known for producing Barbie and Hot Wheels cars, returns with its new line of princess dolls representing 17 different Disney characters, including Anna and Elsa, Moana and Cinderella.
The launch of the doll brands makes Mattel prom queen once again and is something of a sea change for the company, which has experienced financial difficulties and a lack of creative inspiration in recent years.
The company’s CEO, Ynon Kreiz, has implemented a series of corporate restructurings along with other changes to breathe new life into the company’s designs and increase market share.
As a result, sales are booming again with Mattel seeing an increase in net sales and a turnaround from a loss of $343 million in 2017 to a profit of $730 million in 2021.
Toymaker Mattel, best known for making Barbie, has announced a new line of princess dolls representing 17 different Disney characters.
The company’s CEO, Ynon Kreiz, has implemented a series of corporate restructurings along with other changes to breathe new life into the company’s designs and increase market share.
The company’s share price has hovered around $20, less than half its 2013 high, but it has been profitable through the first three quarters of 2022.
Mattel’s return to producing and selling Disney princess dolls comes nearly a decade after losing the license to rival company Hasbro.
He lost the franchise after developing his own line of dolls that matched the Disney characters. The company had a relationship with the House of Mouse for 70 years, beginning with The Mickey Mouse Club TV in the 1950s.
The company seems to finally be on the rise with the release of new toy lines along with collaborations with fine art creators.
It is also expanding the presence of its toy brands, aided by the creation of live events and movies, all in an effort to increase market share and broaden the appeal of its toy catalog.
Aurora, Ariel, Pocahontas, Rapunzel, Tiana, Snow White, Belle, Jasmine, Merida, Mulan, Moana, Cinderella and Raya are part of the new line of Mattel/Disney dolls.
Kreiz is a former television studio executive who briefly worked for Disney before becoming CEO in 2018.
“You would walk into this building and you wouldn’t think it was a toy company. It felt like an insurance company in the Midwest,” Kreiz told the Wall Street Journal.
After taking on the role, Kreiz hired Robbie Brenner, the producer behind the Oscar-nominated Dallas Buyers Club, to head up a new film unit.
Now Mattel is helping produce hit movies with ties to its toy brands. Progress has been rapid with 15 feature films in some stage of development, including a Barbie movie due for release this summer.
Mattel ventured further into monster trucks and racetracks for its Hot Wheels cars, including radio controlled cars. It was an area of the toy market where Mattel previously had little experience and involvement.
The return of Disney’s partnership with Mattel comes after the company began asking itself, “Are we making good toys?”
“We’ve gone from being a toy company that makes items to an intellectual property company that manages franchises,” explains Kreiz.
“When we lost Disney Princess, there was an obsession with numbers — the culture was being driven by spreadsheets and checklists and how to grow through cost reduction,” said Ted Wu, Mattel’s chief vehicle designer. . W.S.J.
“We weren’t really asking ourselves, ‘Are we making good toys?'”
Mattel ventured further into monster trucks and racetracks for its Hot Wheels cars, including radio controlled cars. It was an area of the toy market where Mattel previously had little experience and involvement.
But when Disney divested Mattel, the share price fell 25 percent and saw three CEOs come and go.
Mattel’s return to producing and selling Disney princess dolls comes nearly a decade after losing the license to rival company Hasbro. In the image, a girl is seen with the Moana doll.
The new dolls are part of a broader effort to revive the allure of design at the company. The Rapunzel doll is pictured here on the right.
For the new line of Disney princess dolls, Mattel set out to make the design more like what children imagined the characters should look like, based on feedback from focus groups.
To achieve this, the designers digitally sculpted features and hand-painted faces on prototypes that were based on the characters’ appearance in movies and used new fibers woven for a more diverse range of hair types.
Some of Mattel’s new dolls come in packaging that can be cut out and turned into backdrops, like a shell throne from The Little Mermaid, which enhances play sets for kids.
The return of the Disney princesses was a great triumph for Mattel. In recent years, the company has held “Big Ideas” exhibits, where employees can pitch new toy ideas to top executives.
The “color reveal” dolls in the Barbie line, which change color when submerged in water, were developed after Mattel employees could suggest ideas to top executives.
The “color reveal” dolls in the Barbie line, which change color when submerged in water, were developed through such a process.
In addition, COO Richard Dickson has launched Mattel Creations, which produces higher-priced, limited-edition collectors’ versions of toys from various product lines, often in collaboration with artists.
Kreiz closed factories and significantly reduced the number of employees, from 13,500 to 8,500.
He also reorganized the company’s creative divisions, grouping them into teams that design dolls, vehicles and toys for young children to facilitate the exchange of ideas.
Despite such efforts, the company is still working towards the annual sales of more than $6 billion that it regularly achieved earlier in the decade.