How to Save an Iconic Brand

When Barbie sales were falling, Mattel asked Richard Dickson to help save the famous toy. To do it, he drew up a four-part playbook.

- JASON FEIFER

How do you save a brand that everyone knows, but not everybody likes?

Back in 2014, the toy company Mattel needed an answer to that question-fast. It owns popular brands like Hot Wheels and Fisher-Price, but one of its consistently top-selling products has long been Barbie. The tall, blonde doll enjoyed ubiquity for over half a century, but her popularity was slipping. To many people, Barbie had come to represent outdated standards of beauty and gender norms, and sales had dropped 20% in the prior two years alone. So the company called Richard Dickson, a former Mattel executive who'd left to run a fashion brand, and asked him to come back and save the famed doll. "We were in a real moment of truth around the brand's continued evolution," Dickson says.

But he saw a way forward: They would double down on the brand's deeper mission, and then use that to guide many big changes. As a result, since that critical moment, Barbie sales have more than doubled. The brand had its best year ever in 2021, and was on track for more growth in 2022. Here, Dickson explains how he did it-and why he says that "while evolution makes a brand relevant, purpose makes a brand immortal."

Culture changes rapidly these days. How does that impact the toy business?

With toys, obviously the first thing that comes to mind is fun and play and light subject matter. But when you back up, good toys are a reflection of our times. We're in a day and age where there is a fluidity to play, and toys must allow kids to express themselves freely. In order for these products to stay relevant, they must continue to evolve and move with the times. If we're doing our job right, 10 years from now we'll look back at our current narrative and what Barbie looked like today and say, "Oh my goodness, that was so 2022."

When Mattel first called you, and you saw the situation with Barbie, what did you think?