Mattel, Inc. designs
and manufactures world renowned and best-selling toys and for more than 50
years Mattel had been innovating, designing new toys, reinventing the way children play with each generation
and had launched new line of toys for its most popular brands like Barbie, Hot
Wheels, etc. Creativity, Innovation, cultural heritage of the company and
vision is a must for a company like Mattel to survive and develop the iconic
toys for the children. Another critical success factor for Mattel is, the
company uses innovation to address existing trends in today’s marketplace and
transforms toys into sophisticated gadgets, bringing a new dimension to how
kids play. Take for instance Barbie Dolls are portrayed with different careers
like Doctor, Teacher, Marine, etc. The
quest for innovation have forced Mattel to adopt a new method of product
development process in 2001 called Project
Platypus conducted three times a year in which a dozen employees from all
levels of experience, with various skill sets and backgrounds were assigned the
task of ideating and developing a completely new brand in 12 weeks through
intensive and unique brainstorming process. Outside speakers like comedians
were brought in to entertain the team and they were given freedom of time to
explore and create new concepts like Ello, Construction set for Girls. This is
how innovation is fueled within Mattel internally along with its constant
innovation and development process the employees engage daily. The company
design center called Handler Team Center had undergone an internal design
refresh in 2009 to create a more creative and collaborative work environment
and currently features a ramp at the front door which slopes up from the
parking lot, allowing full-sized Hot Wheels cars to drive right into the
building.
Mattel went one step further and decided to engage their customers in their
innovation and development of new toys and developing the existing toys even
further. In January 2010, Mattel launched a month-long voting campaign open to
anyone for Barbie's next career on Barbie.com, Barbie's Twitter and Facebook
pages, in addition to a bus and billboard campaign in New York and more than 600,000 votes were cast during the voting.
The end result was Computer engineer Barbie "won
the popular vote" and anchorwoman won the girls' vote. Since its inception Barbie went on to have
more than 130 other professions, frequently reflecting or even predicting
societal change. In September 2012, Mattel has announced an Open
Innovation initiative with Genius Crowds to develop crowd-sourced product ideas
for their most revered brands of Hot Wheels and Barbie bicycles for young
children aged 4-6 years old and the company is asking its customers to provide innovative
product ideas and actively engage in the innovation process. Through this
platform the company is looking to maintain an open two way communication with
consumers about their ideas and product needs by constantly exchanging ideas
with the company. Along with crowdsourcing the ideas and creativity the company
is looking to constantly stay in touch with and meet the needs of kids and
their parents. The company
continuously focuses on translating entertainment brands to toys and creates
long-term, sustainable properties with global product footprints and relying on
crowdsourcing for achieving this goal.
