Barbie's Got New Competition

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on August 03

Mattel’s Barbie doll has been doing a lot of celebrating lately. She turned 50 this year, had a runway show during Spring Fashion Week in New York and had a big blow out party in her life-size Malibu beach house.

She clobbered her rival the Bratz in a big intellectual property infringement case last year. The final decision by the courts is still to come, but Mattel seems well on its way of taking over that brand. Mattel CEO Robert Eckert told me an interview last week that his company is working on its own new Bratz doll line—to be launched next year. It’ll be aimed at girls slightly older than Barbie’s core customers. “It will be complementary with an e,” Eckert explained. (Bratz have never been very complimentary to Barbie.)

But now the blond one has got new competition. The Bratz’ current owner, MGA CEO Isaac Larian, is launching a new doll line—Moxie Girlz—that’s them up above. And rival Spinmaster is launching LIV—a line of Barbie-size dolls that have a lot more features such as glass-like eyes rather than painted ones, changeable wigs and fourteen articulation points to the typical doll’s five. That means the LIV dolls will be more flexible. They’ll be priced roughly the same though, under $19.

Lutz Muller, an analyst who follows the toy biz, says retailers are more excited about LIV. That’s because Spinmaster is on a hot streak due to its Bakugan line of tops for boys. “They are going to be taken very seriously,” Muller says. “If Spinmaster brings something it’s going to be well done. Of Larian’s Moxie Girlz he says: “As the name suggests, he’s got a lot of moxie. Isaac knows he’s going to lose Bratz. It’s a nice doll. The reception is very much cooler. (Retailers) don’t think he has the money to establish a new line. They doubt whether he’ll have the dough to put moxie on the map.”