Thursday, April 24, 2008 -- 7:11 p.m.
OK, so Barbie herself isn't going eco-friendly. After all, what would Blondie be without her plastic body and thousands of accessories. Rather, her fans are being given a chance to play green by buying stuff made out of the scraps of those thousands of accessories.
A few weeks ago, Mattel introduced Barbie BCause, a limited edition collection of eco-friendly accessories for girls. The company is using excess fabric and trimmings from Barbie products to patch together a line of purses, tote bags, pillows, hats and more. Prices range from $5.99 to $19.99.
Now, I'm all for teaching children the benefits of going green and caring for the environment, but I'm not completely convinced that this is the way to do it. Mattel's marketing department certainly came up with a winner in terms of making more money with having to spend much.
Here's my question: Will the products come with any sort of child-friendly information as to why buying Barbie's scraps is good for planet Earth? Will the parents buying this stuff be able to explain to their kids the meaning behind the repurposed goods?
As a company that reaches so many children, it would be nice to see Barbie take the extra step to educate their little customers with information they can use and learn from, instead of marketing toward their parents or the kids' desire to have more Barbie stuff.
2 Comments
Sarita said:
I agree that teaching kids is the way to go. For good or bad, they are very impressionable and teaching "green" lessons young could be a big deal. I'm just not sure I see Mattel as the ones to do it, particularly for business reasons. Why would a toy company teach children not to be over-consumers?
Interesting find, though. Where did you hear about the Barbie scraps?
SUPRIYA'S REPLY: They sent out a press release :) I can see your point about companies wanting kids to be over-consumers, but I think that there's plenty of room to do that while being green. Lots of companies are making money with "green" initiatives. And if you're already claiming to be green, like Mattel is with their scrap products, why not go the extra step?
Justine said:
It is interesting how corporations are stating to treat Earth Day as a consumer holiday... isn't that sort of defeating the purpose?
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