Just because an idea or an
initiative doesn’t work doesn’t necessarily mean that the idea itself is a bad
idea. This week, Mattel and
Wal-Mart announced they have a partnership
to sell four “University Barbies” exclusively at Wal-Mart stores in the markets
of four Southeastern Conference Schools.
This isn’t a new idea for the toy company. Mattel tried to market University Barbies 16 years ago, in
an ill-fated promotion that lasted barely a year.
So why does Mattel think this initiative will work now, fifteen years removed from its initial, spectacular failure? Well first, let’s look at why the initiative failed in the first place. The initial problem was one of distribution – Mattel didn’t distribute much of its product on a regional basis in the 1990’s. The product line consisted mostly of dolls clad in the gear of schools in the Southeast and on the East Coast. But because the products were distributed nationally, Barbies affiliated with those schools ended up scattered about the country.
While there may have been some interest for girls playing with a cheerleader Barbie, they seemed less inclined to do so with a generic outfit than one branded with a specific school thousands of miles away. In retrospect, it seems obvious that Mattel should have realized this would be a problem.
But perhaps the idea was just ahead of its time. One reason that Mattel is optimistic about this newest incarnation of University Barbie is that they now have the ability to distribute their products regionally and in a cost effective way. Now, Arkansas-branded Barbies aren’t likely to end up in Ohio or worse, gasp, in Texas. Mattel is on record saying that if this program is successful, they plan to launch at other schools in 2013.
If we go outside of the Mattel example, we can expand this discussion to the notion of market research versus intuition. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs once said, “It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want…we figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too.” (Sara, 2011). Jobs gets a lot of credit for this statement and this philosophy because this line of thinking led to the creation of the IIe, the Mac and the ipad among others. It also led to a lot of business disasters and internal business conflict. Such is the roller coaster companies experience when their executives rely on intuition – the hits can be bigger, but the misses can be more frequent.
My own thought is that there has to be a balance between intuition and market research. Market research can tell you what has happened in the past. Market research and financial analysis can tell you the fundamentals of what is happening to a company or a business in the moment that you conduct that analysis. It can’t tell you what is going to happen in the future. It can’t tell a decision-maker what is coming next. If the decision-maker can divorce himself from ego, trust what he sees and feels, and then is able to place those feelings into the business at hand, then that decision-maker can combine the best skills of intuition with the hard numbers of market research to create a successful activation.
Perhaps, fifteen years ago, the executive at Mattel was ahead of his time as well. Perhaps the idea simply outpaced Mattel’s ability to execute it. Perhaps the real genius comes from the executive who was willing to revisit the idea because he or she believed in the guts of it and recognized some of the issues that derailed it the first time around. Perhaps Mattel will have a big hit with University Barbie in the second half of the game.
Go Team Go!
So why does Mattel think this initiative will work now, fifteen years removed from its initial, spectacular failure? Well first, let’s look at why the initiative failed in the first place. The initial problem was one of distribution – Mattel didn’t distribute much of its product on a regional basis in the 1990’s. The product line consisted mostly of dolls clad in the gear of schools in the Southeast and on the East Coast. But because the products were distributed nationally, Barbies affiliated with those schools ended up scattered about the country.
While there may have been some interest for girls playing with a cheerleader Barbie, they seemed less inclined to do so with a generic outfit than one branded with a specific school thousands of miles away. In retrospect, it seems obvious that Mattel should have realized this would be a problem.
But perhaps the idea was just ahead of its time. One reason that Mattel is optimistic about this newest incarnation of University Barbie is that they now have the ability to distribute their products regionally and in a cost effective way. Now, Arkansas-branded Barbies aren’t likely to end up in Ohio or worse, gasp, in Texas. Mattel is on record saying that if this program is successful, they plan to launch at other schools in 2013.
If we go outside of the Mattel example, we can expand this discussion to the notion of market research versus intuition. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs once said, “It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want…we figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too.” (Sara, 2011). Jobs gets a lot of credit for this statement and this philosophy because this line of thinking led to the creation of the IIe, the Mac and the ipad among others. It also led to a lot of business disasters and internal business conflict. Such is the roller coaster companies experience when their executives rely on intuition – the hits can be bigger, but the misses can be more frequent.
My own thought is that there has to be a balance between intuition and market research. Market research can tell you what has happened in the past. Market research and financial analysis can tell you the fundamentals of what is happening to a company or a business in the moment that you conduct that analysis. It can’t tell you what is going to happen in the future. It can’t tell a decision-maker what is coming next. If the decision-maker can divorce himself from ego, trust what he sees and feels, and then is able to place those feelings into the business at hand, then that decision-maker can combine the best skills of intuition with the hard numbers of market research to create a successful activation.
Perhaps, fifteen years ago, the executive at Mattel was ahead of his time as well. Perhaps the idea simply outpaced Mattel’s ability to execute it. Perhaps the real genius comes from the executive who was willing to revisit the idea because he or she believed in the guts of it and recognized some of the issues that derailed it the first time around. Perhaps Mattel will have a big hit with University Barbie in the second half of the game.
Go Team Go!
Additional Resources:
Sara. (2011, November 1). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://blog.lab42.com
