Barbie's a serial killer? Really? Hey, the bigger the brand, the bigger the target. Whether your opponent has a legitimate claim or is just looking for attention, iconic brands make tempting foils for activists' claims.
Mattel, the Barbie Doll line's parent company has been trying to roll out a series of products that are environmentally sensitive. They sense, correctly, that their target demographic will respond positively to that message. The problem, as so often happens with well-intentioned social responsibility initiatives, is that doing too little can be worse than doing nothing. Greenpeace has accused Mattel and a host of other childrens's products manufacturers of Greenwash; ie, trying to paper over their environmental depredations with superficial public relations ploys. There is a rain forest connection here, but the larger issue appears to an attempt to draw broader public attention to the environment and what better way than with a 'shock and awe' campaign against global girl-doms' favorite dress-up doll.
The lesson is that operational behavior has to closely track PR claims, ideally with some sort of 'clean' thrid party validation. Otherwise the publicity value of the hypocrisy charge will be too good to ignore. JL
Constantine von Hoffman reports in BNet:
What do Nestle (NSRGY), McDonald’s (MCD), Burger King, Disney (DIS), Hasbro (HAS), and Lego have in common? They rely on the goodwill of kids and parents and have all been targeted by Greenpeace. Now the activists have set their sites on none other than Barbie and her parent Mattel (MAT).
Greenpeace says the choice of companies is coincidental, but it can’t hurt that it is so easy to scare the companies’ core constituency. While Mattel is the current object of Greenpeace’s campaign, the group really wants to go after an indirect target, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). Greenpeace claims that Singapore-based APP, one of the world’s largest producers of wood products, has leveled vast swaths of rain forest over the last two decades.
APP says these charges are totally unsubstantiated. “APP is one of the few companies in Southeast Asia, which has been working hard to promote the production of this type of recycled carton box packaging,” said Aida Greenbury, the company’s sustainability chief. “We are happy to share the scientific analysis of our packaging materials with anyone who wants to review it.”
Unfortunately for APP, that argument is hard to put into a cute video. And that is key here. Whichever side is right, this issue is unlikely to be decided by mere facts.
Why? There is nothing that upsets people quite like bad things happening to charismatic megafauna (furry animals with big eyes), and Greenpeace has exploited that for all it’s worth. The Nestle campaign featured a video of an office worker opening a Kit Kat, and spewing blood as he bit on an orangutan finger. It got a 1 million views in two weeks. Nestle was then swamped with phone calls, letters (Do people still send those? Aren’t they made out of paper?), and tens of thousands of angry messages on Facebook.
Barbie as serial killer
When something works you don’t change it, so Mattel is being hit with a video in which an animated Ken doll is spattered with blood while watching footage of Barbie slaughtering orangutans and tigers. A narrator asks: “Did you ever think of Barbie as a serial killer?”
Greenpeace may have a particular non-endangered species bone to pick with Mattel. The company has been accused of greenwashing with its Barbie BCause line of clothes and accessories. The company pitched the line as environmentally friendly because it was made out of cloth used to make Barbie clothes. (No, that doesn’t make sense to me, either.) Also, this year’s Architecture Barbie is running a contest with the American Institute of Architects to have someone design her a green Dream House.
The first stage of Greenpeace’s “Murderer Barbie” PR blitz involved hanging a giant banner at Mattel’s headquarters. The banner had a frowning Ken with the message: “Barbie, it’s over. I don’t date girls that are into deforestation.” (Note to Greenpeace: Girls are people, not things, and therefore it should read “girls who” and not “girls that.” Then again, this is Barbie, so never mind.)
Greenpeace may already have the toughest part of the campaign behind it. While it may be difficult to get a huge corporation to change how it does business, it has to be even harder to get a member of Greenpeace to wear synthetic fabrics. Yet one did just that, playing Barbie while driving a cute pink front-loader. She was later arrested by police, much to everyone’s relief.
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