A display of Barbie Fashionistas is shown at the Mattel showroom at the North American International Toy Fair. Photo / AP
A display of Barbie Fashionistas is shown at the Mattel showroom at the North American International Toy Fair. Photo / AP
Once, she was the undisputed queen of the toy cupboard. But today, sales of Barbie are in free-fall. Rachel Halliwell (and her 8-year-old daughter) explore her decline and ask how toy manufacturers can win over girls now.
Has Barbie had her day? If falling sales figures are anything to go by then the 55-year-old has certainly had a rotten year of it.
Attempts to make her relevant - in an age when modern girls are engaged in technology as much as sparkle - has done nothing to stop purchases of the iconic doll go into free-fall.
It's a question that's surely being asked by the grey suits at Mattel, after the recent abrupt resignation of the toy manufacturer's chief executive, Bryan Stockton, on the back of a 49 per cent drop in profits.
That, and: "How the hell do you get it right when it comes to marketing toys to 21st century little girls?"
Britain's biggest toy manufacturer, Vivid Imaginations (which makes products for everyone from One Direction to Disney), says it's a task that requires "walking a tightrope between remaining gender neutral but also acknowledging traditional play patterns".
In other words, making toys that will appeal to children without upsetting the people who ultimately will be buying them: their parents.
When it comes to girls, "you're damned if you do and damned if you don't", says Vivid's marketing director, Mary Wood.
"If you stick with traditional and don't cover aspirational, you'll get criticised. Vice versa, and it's the same story. So you try to cover all bases and accept that some of what you produce will be more successful than others."
Just six years ago, Barbie accounted for more than a quarter of doll sales in the United States - the latest figures show she now makes up less than a fifth. Stockton's departure would suggest that the latest rebrand didn't make a jot of difference.
Entrepreneur Barbie hit the toy shops last year: as impeccably groomed, impossibly proportioned and pink-obsessed as ever, she was somehow supposed to reflect the corporate ambitions of modern 8-year-olds. She even had her own LinkedIn account. But, of course, a smartphone, a tablet and your own Twitter hashtag are never going to be passports to instant success; no matter how big your assets are. And when you consider some of the other, far more exciting careers Barbie has enjoyed over the years - at one point she was an astronaut, for goodness sake, and remember when she ran for President? - you really do start to ponder whether the problem lies elsewhere. And I don't mean Ken.
At the Nuremberg toy fair last month, Mattel launched its latest Barbie: a princess with superhero powers.
The vice-president of global marketing for Barbie at Mattel, Lori Pantel, says she sees the new superhero doll as a true reflection of the modern age.
Mattel came up with the idea by "looking back to go forward", she says, and that, when it comes to marketing, toy firms must "listen to what girls say".
So, in that same spirit, I asked my 8-year-old daughter, Bridie, why she doesn't play with Barbie.
"She's boring," came the reply. "I don't like her."
However, like most girls her age, she has bought into the Frozen franchise. Bridie seems to like the strength and complexity of the characters in the Disney film - note to Mattel: they're less than perfect and have abdomens that would, proportionally speaking, allow them to have internal organs were they only human.
Bridie dresses up as Elsa, a regal beauty, who struggles with deep inner turmoil and a terrible secret. Compare Elsa to Barbie, and the old girl instantly looks outdated and one-dimensional.
Barbie wore an updated version of her famous black and white swimsuit in the 50th anniversary edition of Sports illustrated.
As Bridie put it: "Elsa has a better personality."
Put like that, then I suppose I feel more of an affinity with Elsa, too. Why else would I have coughed up an astonishing amount of money for a dress-up gown and matching shoes for my child to prance around the garden in? I doubt I'd consider forking out anything similar for some Barbie garb, whatever Bridie thought of her.
I know plenty of other mothers feel as I do about Barbie: that she's an antiquated and warped take on unachievable perfection, however aspirational you dress her up to be.
But there are many more people who don't have a problem with her and eventually they will buy back into the Barbie brand for their daughters. She's become the playtime version of Marmite.
Meanwhile, back in Bridie's toy cupboard, as well as that Elsa dress, she also has several boxes of Lego's Friends range. With a tagline "The Lego Friends are a group of five very different and very talented girls living in Heartlake City", the girls are at least shown working as vets, lifeguards, first aiders and pizzeria owners. If not exactly aspirational, then practical.
These are unashamedly aimed at girls. Bridie and her friends seem to love the stuff - despite the social media backlash when Friends first launched with its pastel packaging.
"We already have Lego for girls," detractors fumed. "It's called Lego." Even s, the range is now about to turn 3 and already sits comfortably as the fourth largest toy property in Britain, behind Frozen, Barbie and Disney Princess. So they clearly got something right.
Lego marketing director Rebecca Snell tells me that the Friends range was the most heavily researched concept in the company's history and spent four years in development.
"We learned that parents want their daughters to keep playing with Lego - which always has been gender neutral - but research shows that girls stop playing with construction toys much earlier than boys, and move on to creative fashion play."
So Lego - the company that took Mattel's title as the world's biggest toy manufacturer - developed a toy that appeals both to a parental desire for gender neutrality and, crucially, to the playtime desires of little girls.
Miley Cyrus with Barbie. Photo / Getty Images
"They told us they like things like little mirrors and combs for their characters - that they like fashion and playing around with different clothes. So, as well as positive role models in the play sets, which include scientists, vets and lifeguards, we gave them all that too."
Might any of this insight help keep Barbie out of retirement? Have rumours of her demise been greatly exaggerated?
Probably not. After all, she's had all those jobs and is the queen of the plastic accessory. There's clearly a lot of head-scratching, quizzing of girls and their parents still to be done by Mattel's marketing team.
"But," says Wood, "the beauty of the toy industry is that, with some clever marketing, everything can turn around again in two years.
"Mattel has a job on its hands but, given Barbie's history, the one thing you have to admit is that she endures. I honestly think this is just a blip for her. Barbie isn't going anywhere."
