Who should the marketer consider as the consumer when advertising a child's toy? Is the consumer the user/child who will play with the item? Or is the consumer the parent/purchaser who will make the actual product purchase? Today, children have become an important demographic to marketers because they have their own purchasing power but also have a strong influence on their parents' buying decisions. Some research suggests children have a significant influence on their parents regarding food purchases, clothing purchases, casual dining decisions, and family entertainment decisions. According to the marketing industry book Kidfluence, many marketers target children because they rely on them to pester their parents to buy certain products rather than advertising straight to mom or dad. Read about Barbie sales below and see this type of kidfluence in reverse effect. In the early 2000s, moms still loved and purchased Barbie dolls for their daughters, but daughters no longer wanted to play with the historically beloved toy.

Barbie has been around since 1959 and has had long-term success with more than 1 billion Barbies being sold throughout the years. But in the early 2000s, Barbie ran into trouble. Unable to compete with sophisticated Internet and video games, Barbie sales slipped for many consecutive quarters. Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie dolls, tried hard to make her contemporary with a small amount of success. Mattel even tried experimenting with its franchisethere was a Barbie video game and a website (barbie.com) that attracted millions of viewers. But the efforts did not do much to spur sales of Barbie. For toy giant Mattel, Barbie.com--launched in the late 1990s--has become a critical tool for connecting with preteen customers.

Barbie sales had seen a steep decline, due not only to kids' sliding interest in traditional toys but also from heightened competition from other dolls, including MGA Entertainment's Bratz, Walt Disney's Princesses line, and from other Mattel brands such as Polly Pocket and American Girl. Worldwide sales of the Barbie brand fell significantly for years. Meanwhile, American Girl and Polly Pocket sales saw double-digit increases. According to the president of a national brand strategy company, Barbie is never going to be the profitable doll that she once was because the marketplace for toys has changed so dramatically. Mattel might just be trying to revive a brand that is too far gone. Barbie is simply struggling to keep up with today's kids. They're used to characters such as Dora the Explorer, from the popular TV show on Nick Jr. Dora, not only speaks in English and Spanish, but she interacts heavily with her audience with questions.

But Barbies biggest doll opponents were the Bratz dolls like Yasmin, Cloe, Sasha and Jade--midriff-baring girls who flaunt their "passion for fashion" with sequins, fur and heavy eye shadow. Since their debut in 2001, Bratz began stealing shelf space right out from under Barbie's heels. Some $2 billion of Bratz were sold worldwide at retail each year. That was only a little more than half of Barbie's numbers, but Bratz's figures were growing while Barbie's stats were deflating. In some countries like England, Australia and South Africa, Bratz even outsold Barbie, cornering as much as 60 percent of the market. The company that manufactures Bratz says the dolls are hipper, more fashionable dolls that girls can relate to. But while rivals such as the Bratz doll line were hurting sales, the plastic princess still reigned supreme at her very own website. As a matter of fact, Mattel executives claimed that Barbie.com had even become something of a refuge for girls older than eight who may be somewhat embarrassed to be still playing with dolls. Many of these girls sent apologetic e-mails to Barbie saying it's not always the coolest thing to be doing in front of their friends, but they're still thinking about her. Like almost every place on the Web, Mattel's sites emphasize interactivity. Some 9 million girls were registered on the site to receive mass email messages from Barbie, and Mattel research showed that Barbie.com visitors report recently purchasing Barbie products.

Despite Barbie's declining sales, Mattel continued to post traffic gains on its websites. According to online research firm comScore Networks, Mattel's sites generated 8.7 million unique visitors in one month alone, a 4% increase over the same period in the previous year. Mattel's sites reached the second-largest audience of girls between ages 2 and 11, according to comScore. These figures were greater than many of the sites hosted by childrens TV networks. The world's largest doll maker had an edge over the children's TV networks, which largely target boys. During this time, data collected by Mediamark Research found that girls between the ages of 6 and 11 are more likely to go online than boys.and that is exactly where these girls would find Barbie.

1 - What family/household factors do you think influenced the purchase of Barbie products by children and/or their parents? Explain your answer (5 points).

2 - What family/household factors influenced childrens increased use of the Barbie.com website despite their lack of Barbie purchases? Explain your answer (5 points).

3 - Bratz dolls were more popular among preteen girls than Barbie, and moms bought Bratz dolls for their children despite the fact that they themselves loved Barbie as children and the image of Barbie is slightly more wholesome than dolls in the Bratz line. What family/household factors of consumer behavior explain this? Explain your answer (5 points).