There is a large fabulous agency who has a large fabulous toymaker as a client. Together they are using Scout Labs to monitor various toy and doll brands, and some really interesting insights are coming back! Inspired by those findings, I thought I’d dig in to Scout Labs and see if I can find any other juicy doll and toy news to share with you all while demonstrating how Scout Labs works.
I started with the Bratz brand, as I keep hearing news updates about the epic trademark infringement battle between Bratz parent company, MGA Entertainment, and Mattel, the maker of Barbie.
For those of you who do not have nine year old daughters, the Bratz dolls — Chloe, Jade, Yasmine, and Sasha — are BFFs and are sassy / trashy younger versions of the Barbie doll. Way more bling. Way more color streaks in their hair. Lips that are way more plump. Way into fashion.
In Scout Labs, if you click on the Sentiment tab within a Bratz search, you actually see a mix of positive and negative views expressed.
But I wanted to know what moms, or parents, think about Bratz dolls, guessing that it might be a bit different. To do that, I created a search for “Bratz”
I have never been a fan of the Bratz doll line and we haven’t had them in this house since the first time my daughter received one as a gift — the baby Bratz doll was wearing thong underwear — eewww. So the recent news the Bratz manufacturer, MGA Entertainment, must stop producing the dolls because of a copyright infringement lawsuit from Mattel is music to my ears.
Even The Onion chimed in with this riveting piece that exposes how the Bratz dolls are warping the self-image of today’s young girls by making them want to have giant heads too:
As I scanned the Bratz-hating posts, I noticed some equally strong words about Dora the Explorer. Wait, Dora, the happy backpack-toting multi-lingual traveler beloved by preschoolers?
Yep. Another scandal!
Mattel has announced that it is “updating” Dora to create a hip junior-high girl (whose silhouette does really look an awful lot like a Bratz doll).
From their press release: “As tweenage Dora, our heroine has moved to the big city, attends middle school and has a whole new fashionable look.” OK, is that really necessary?
In case you were wondering what parents think of the change, you can look to Scout Labs’ Frequent Words module which summarizes the top conversations, and you quickly see that both “skank” and “skanky” made it into the top 20 this week!
Good to also note those are NEW terms (in orange) this week, meaning that we haven’t seen ‘skank’ or ‘skanky’ associated with Dora the Explorer in past weeks. Go figure.
So, yes, parents are outraged over this one, inspiring some very clever blog post titles, such as:
Dora the Slutty Explorer
Dora the Sexplorer
Don’t Bratz Dora!
You can sign the petition here.
Very interesting. I have to say we stay FAR FAR away from the Bratz world in our house.. and even my daughters seem to get how awful skanky they are..
But the Dora thing?? That IS news to me.. I don’t even have an opinion yet!
“Dora the Mall-Explorer.. ha!”
Was great talking to Julie today. Thanks for taking the time to explain all this to a regular ole’ SM Mommy!