The Assignment: We must find a currently struggling or interesting brand, and find a way to revitalize its image and reposition the brand.
The Problem: For this project, my group (Scott Roberts, Emily Miller, Maggie McKenna) and I chose Mattel's world-famous Barbie brand, having noticed that young girls seemed to have drifted away from playing with dolls and, in particular, Barbie. After researching competition, developing focus groups and surveys, and considering the changes in modern society, we developed a new insight to revitalize Barbie's appeal in the eyes of its consumers: Barbie lets young girls create their own world.
My Involvement: This was a fascinating project to work on as a guy who had neither siblings nor much knowledge of the Barbie brand. This project gave me the chance to ask a close friend and former Toys-R-Us employee and collector of "Monster High" dolls, about her observations amongst what was popular among girls, and what drew her to enjoy Barbie's main competitor so much. I developed survey questions and discussion prompts for focus groups in this case, asking such questions as what comes to mind when people hear such brand names as "Barbie," "Bratz," and "Monster HIgh," while also diving into toy research, sales, and looking for the ways that the Barbie brand had survived for 50 years now. Working on the questions and research for this project required me to think about what would really spur the survey-takers to reflect on their own childhoods and how they treat their children's toys and future as well. Together, we as a group developed our repositioning statement by comparing Barbie's long history of "careers" and roles, meant to inspire young girls that they can achieve anything, with the contemporary competition's focus on high school, shopping and appearances.
Creative Strategy Project
