Mattel S House of Barbie in Shanghai

¶ … Mattel Faced in China

In 2009 Mattel opened a six-story House of Barbie in Shanghai, expecting it to be an enormous hub for an emerging market in China. However, just two years later Mattel was forced to close the doors on the $30 million facility. This paper will explain why Mattel failed to make an impact with its House of Barbie in Shanghai. It will show the problems that the company faced going in, which it failed to sufficiently consider, and how those problems might have been overcome.

The main points that this paper will examine are the specific market problems that Mattel faced by opening its store in China as well as the cause of the failure in terms of values and attitudes, gender differences, polite behavior expectations, forms of communication, importance of emotion, and education. The last points will focus on recommendations. In short, the American company expected the Asian culture to embrace a Western icon that had no legitimate roots in Chinese culture. Though the doll was popular, it had not the same significance for young Chinese girls as it did for young American girls (Wang, 2012). The first thing Mattel should have done before opening the store was establish a deeper cultural foundation for Barbie within the Chinese consumer.

Problems Mattel Faced

Mattel faced a number of problems going in. First off, it was essentially "competing" with itself, as Barbie dolls were already sold in China and knock-offs could easily be purchased at a much cheaper price for children (who did not care whether or not their doll was authentic). In other words, Mattel faced competition from generic producers and had not established brand loyalty in the market place among adult consumers purchasing for their children. It completely misunderstood its target market base in China, thinking it was as Westernized as Americans simply because it liked Barbie dolls. China was not the West: it liked the dolls but easily interchanged them with generic models because it had not brand loyalty in terms of purchasing authentic products.

Another problem that Mattel faced was that it did not have a sound justification for its flagship store in Shanghai. The fanfare for the opening was more impressive than the actual business that it drummed up. The entire idea of a flagship store was misguided from the start as it was not something that could culturally appeal to the average Chinese consumer. Mainly, Mattel faced a serious culture-clash by jumping the gun and anticipating a market for its products that simply did not exist on any level that justified a $30 million facility (Voigt, 2012).

Finally, Mattel failed to understand the dynamic of the Chinese market. It was not a market in which Western iconic goods could be embraced as though they represented China's own past. In America, Barbie had been glorified and glamorized effectively in the media to the point that it had become firmly embedded in the American consciousness -- the image of American modern woman -- the expression of feminism and confidence. In China, however, Barbie did not and had not represented Chinese womanhood. By leaping in with both feet, Mattel failed to adequately gauge the divide between China's market and Mattel's ambitions.

Six Cultural Issues and Mattel Performance

The values and attitudes that America had associated with Barbie were different from those possessed by the Chinese. American girls valued independence, sexiness, style, fashion, fun, and material possessions. Status was a symbol of all of this and Barbie was status. Chinese girls did not share these values: they had never been as rich as Americans or had the freedom that Americans had (China was still under an authoritarian rule).

Gender differences also were factor in China's failure to embrace Mattel's House of Barbie. Chinese girls were groomed to be "soft" and "sweet" not outgoing, bold and independent like iconic Barbie (Wang, 2012). What gender meant to the two cultures was too different for House of Barbie to serve as a viable bridge between the worlds. That is why it, ultimately, was not traveled.

Polite behavior expectations played a role in the failure of Mattel in China, too. For the Western world girl, politeness was not as important as the right to speak your mind. In China, however, rights were not as important as politeness and respect. In this way, the two cultures were almost completely opposite in terms of self-expression. Barbie was self-expression personified for the American girl -- not so for the Chinese girl (Voigt, 2012).

Forms of communication similarly differed between the two cultures. As Rose (2014) notes, Mattel went into China thinking like an American when it should have been thinking like the Chinese. "Don't think pink," writes Rose (2014) but rather be practical -- consider that fun and learning "are like oil and water in China," which is something Mattel failed to do. Instead it communicated a vast house of fun and style without respecting the Chinese emphasis on details, practicality and purpose (Rose, 2014). As Burkitt (2013) shows, the dolls come second in a Chinese girl's life -- study comes first.

Education, therefore, played an enormous role in undermining Mattel's goal: China's emphasis on education trumped its emphasis on fun and frivolity (Rose, 2014). The Chinese culture simply valued study and learning in the young more than it valued playing with dolls -- and this was something Mattel did not consider: it assumed girls in Asia would line up to embrace the iconic Barbie. The problem was that doing so was an American phenomenon: American girls received their education on how to behave not from the state (as is the case in China) but rather from the television, where ads for Barbie ran during all the girls' shows.

Lastly, the difference in the way the two cultures viewed the importance of emotion caused a divide between Mattel and China to be made. Barbie represents American fun -- a cherished emotion of freedom and the joy of wealth. For China, there were neither. It had long been under the thumb of autocratic rulers and most of its citizens were poor. Emotion in China was not worn on one's sleeve; it was tucked neatly into the uniform lines of conformity.