00:01Mattel has sold more than 1 billion Barbies, making it the best-selling doll of all time.
00:08But sales have declined for two consecutive years.
00:11Mattel's stock actually fell 25% on February 11th in a single day.
00:16The biggest single-day drop since 1999.
00:18That was after fourth quarter earnings saw the company report disappointing holiday results.
00:23One big sticking point was Barbie, which fell short of sales projections.
00:26It was a really big miss during what's typically the most important quarter of the year for toy makers.
00:32But the doll has been written off before.
00:35Since hitting shelves in the 1950s, it survived cultural backlash and a sales war with the maker of Bratz dolls.
00:43After 67 years of reinvention, how has Barbie stayed alive?
00:47And is this just another downturn or a more serious sign of trouble for traditional toy makers like Mattel?
00:55When Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler helped invent the Barbie doll, she wanted to create something that could be a
01:01role model for kids.
01:03Back then, most dolls were babies.
01:06Girls could fantasize about being bigger.
01:09They could fantasize about being teenagers or young adults.
01:13They did not have to fantasize about being moms or wives.
01:17Mattel was also one of the first toy companies to market straight to kids on TV, which helped it sell
01:23over 300,000 Barbies in 1959.
01:28For decades, Barbie dominated the fashion doll industry without major rivals.
01:34In 1991, Mattel reported that 95% of American girls between ages 3 and 11 owned multiple Barbies.
01:43But Barbie's reign was threatened in the early 2000s, when Bratz dolls first hit shelves.
01:49Designed as a direct challenge to the blonde, slim Barbie doll, Bratz featured a diverse cast with more skin tones,
01:56different hairstyles, and edgier fashion that resonated with tweens.
01:59By the mid-2000s, the Bratz doll had hit an estimated $1 billion in annual sales and gobbled up about
02:0740% of the fashion doll market.
02:09In 2015, Barbie sales reached a 25-year low of $900 million, down over 50% from their peak in
02:171997.
02:19That same year, Mattel launched dozens of new Barbies with different body shapes, hairstyles, and skin tones.
02:25But it would take a few more years for the iconic doll to regain its former glory.
02:31Today, Barbie dolls come in over 30 skin tones, and Brian Maldonado creates them from scratch.
02:37The biggest challenge I have, every Barbie character, Monster High character, everybody has their own different kind of skin tone.
02:45I actually just finished cooking one, and we're going to go ahead and pull one out.
02:49You just get your trusty wrench, unlatch everything here, grab it, twist it, pop it right there.
02:58And you got yourself a fresh Barbie head.
03:05That doll head is the canvas for Barbie's hairstylists like Shirley Fujisaki.
03:10She used to work in a salon, and has been the key lead hair designer at Mattel for 19 years.
03:17Part of the interview process was actually getting on this machine that I've never touched before and rooting doll hair.
03:21If somebody's told me that, that I was going to be doing Barbie's hair when, you know, I'm older, I'd
03:26be like, oh, you're crazy.
03:29Our favorite and best tool that we use every day is this pet brush, which is amazing.
03:34You would think a pet brush wouldn't smooth out the hair, but it does an amazing job.
03:43Mattel's hair team has developed over 100 hairstyles in the last decade.
03:46This one was kind of popular with adults just because of the tampling that we did on the hair, the
03:53style that we did on it,
03:54and just how creative it was to, like, do the kitty ears with hair.
03:59One of the ones that took, I would say, probably up to about eight or ten iterations was this one.
04:06It's one of our Fashionista extra dolls.
04:08It took us a few different trials to figure out the exact color placement to get the combination coming to
04:15down here.
04:16So that it can show that ombre color from the front of it.
04:20Adults have played a critical role in Barbie's comeback.
04:24During the pandemic, millennial parents started buying dolls for their kids to try to cut down their screen time.
04:30Nostalgic millennials also showed up en masse for the Barbie movie in 2023,
04:35a blockbuster hit that grossed roughly $1.4 billion.
04:39The movie helped reignite the collector's market, too.
04:45Mark Lear, a longtime collector, has taken advantage of this comeback, selling his own line of custom outfits online.
04:51So I bought these two fabric in Japan, and I got this online.
04:57The shipping was not cheap.
04:59You know, I have to buy more.
05:00He says he could sell this kimono for about $85, but he treats his business as a compliment to his
05:06hobby.
05:07Today, he has hundreds of vintage dolls worth tens of thousands of dollars in his home in Queens, New York.
05:15One of his most valuable items is this European doll, which helped inspire the first Barbie.
05:20So this is called Lily, and this is from Germany, and this was from 1955.
05:27She was about maybe $3,000 to $4,000.
05:30Ruth went to Switzerland with her family, and she saw this doll on the window display.
05:39Each Barbie cost $3 in the early days, and accessories cost extra.
05:45Today, Mark buys most of his new items on Etsy or eBay, like these $20 shoes.
05:51Mark isn't alone.
05:53Mattel says about 13% of its U.S. sales come from adults.
05:57And when you get older, you want to have something to feel like your childhood feel.
06:07Despite collectors like Mark, sales of new Barbie products slid 11% in 2025.
06:13Marking the second straight year of declines.
06:16The toy industry has gotten increasingly competitive.
06:19After a pandemic-era boom, sales have cooled and retailers have pulled back on inventory.
06:24And meanwhile, kids are spending more time on digital entertainment.
06:27The companies that have diversified beyond physical toys, especially into gaming, have given themselves more cushion.
06:33But Mattel hasn't been as fast to expand into that area as some of the other toy companies it competes
06:37with.
06:38Mattel also has a Barbie-specific issue.
06:40The doll saw a huge resurgence in popularity after the 2023 movie came out, but now it's failing to live
06:46up to those readjusted expectations.
06:48A big reason why Mattel competitor Hasbro has held up better is because it's been pushing much more into digital
06:55gaming,
06:55which has helped bring in revenue even as traditional toy sales face pressure.
06:59Ahead of the holiday season, retailers delayed toy orders because they didn't know how much tariffs would raise costs.
07:07Mattel ramped up shipments in October and November to catch up, but stores couldn't sell the extra inventory fast enough.
07:14Now the question is whether this is another temporary slump or a deeper challenge for one of the most iconic
07:20brands in toy history.
07:22So when you see a big drop in a stock like Mattel, around 20% or so over a small
07:27period,
07:27it's a glaring signal that the market's questioning a company's core business.
07:31Mattel might want to take a page out of Hasbro's book and branch out further into digital.
07:35Wall Street seems to think that's where the growth is.
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